Naruto at the Movies!

Naruto the anime is an impossible prospect. With slightly over 700 episodes it stands at about double the length of any anime series I’ve ever seen and I probably couldn’t watch Dragon Ball Z as an adult so when I started my Naruto journey the anime was out of the question completely, it wouldn’t be done, sorry not sorry. Then I fell in love with the boy who cried hokage and the world that surrounded him and before starting the 2nd part of that story I knew I wanted more. The anime adaptation of Naruto is hands down one of the most important anime ever made culturally, there is no debating this fact but the other side is a huge body of work by some of the greatest craftsmen in the industry who got to play in the world of a nonstop decade and a half anime production. I can make the educated guess that most of those episodes are probably standard quality or worse but the names of Norio Matsumoto, Hiroyuki and Shingo Yamashita and one of Masashi Kishimoto‘s own inspirations Tetsuya Nishio echo through the halls of animation history. In other words I really just wanna see the Naruto hands everyone talks up. Indeed there is a way to see said hands, maybe only those hands in a compact quality form with exactly zero relevance to the story at hand. I’m of course talking about the films.

Non canon franchise films seem to be a feature of an era before mine own as an anime fan, when series ran forever and tie in movies released on an almost yearly basis for the biggest hits. Demon Slayer Mugen Train made that a thing of the past with it’s required viewing plot developments and unprecedented box office success and as I write this I’m eagerly awaiting the next installments in that aforementioned series alongside Madoka Magica and Made in Abyss, with CSM Reze front of mind forevermore. Even Dragon Ball filler flicks have been replaced with movies as canon as every other new entry in that universe so safe to say the times have changed. One Piece Red was an outlier but one I only watched for Ado and Spy X Family Code White was kinda the best thing that ever happened in that series so a lack of canon isn’t an inherent lack of value to me and for Naruto it’s a big selling point. Now I too can partake in moderation the thrills of my favourite ninja running about the place but for real this time, in a moving picture, he’s animated let’s go!

The franchise’s first feature film was directed by Tensai Okamura with a screenplay by Katsuyuki Sumisawa and aired in 2004.

Naruto the Movie 1: Ninja Clash in the Land of Snow is everything I ever dreamed of for a Naruto anime… and everything I feared too. When I said a lack of canon isn’t an inherent lack of value the implication was it’s completely possible to make well written filler that either plays in a genre niche that would be fun but inappropriate for the main run or the creation of original characters who can actually grow from the events that take place during these tales. Naruto‘s first cinematic adventure leans into it’s own existence in a very tongue in cheek way, this is a movie about making a movie! Ok maybe it’s really more of a backdrop for the real story of a princess taking back her land from usurpers but the film about film idea was really fun to me, even if it was just flavour that also makes the wonderfully wackass worldbuilding of Naruto that bit more off center. The main reason that subplot jumps to mind for me most is that the main plot is downright diabolical in terms of writing, like lower than even my lowest expectations of filler could ever be. To say they didn’t even try is an understatement, this stands as one of the worst written animated films I’ve yet seen and I can only pray this is not an indicator of what’s to come from this very long film franchise.

Here we tell the tale of famed actress Yukie Furikaze and how with the help of Naruto and the gang she would bring spring to a cold, bitter, and broken land. Nice premise, sounds cool even but there’s just one problem, the film doesn’t have the slightest clue what to do with Yukie. See Yukie’s a depressed actress currently abandoning her next shoot because it’s set to film in the Land of Snow and for some mysterious reason that set’s her off a drinkin’ with a mood that puts off everyone around her. This is a character who’s every bit an ice queen and she has good reasons to be so closed off but we the audience need to care for her for this film to work substantially with the problem being basically until the end she never breaks character, the mask never slips, she kinda just sucks man. She’s plays Naruto’s hero Princess Gale on tv but when our boy meets her in person she does everything to ditch his ass, going as far as to let him get buried in scaffolding that would certainly kill any other kid while she tears up his autograph paper, stopping just short of spitting on his corpse basically. She’s only brought back to set when Kakashi straight up kidnaps her and when they reach the Land of Snow things unsurprisingly go bad, many many people die, and for what. Her? Am I supposed to root for this woman I don’t understand, whose depression is mostly just a excuse for inaction instead of something she herself wishes to work on. This is her film for all intents and purposes and nobody wants to be in it less than her.

The script doesn’t even try to get into her shoes either, there’s one major flashback early on showing her childhood but that serves less to make you root for her and more to set up the spectacle of the climax. The reveal that she is the Princess of the Land of Snow, kicked out in a coup which burned her childhood but specifically her dad to the ground was about as impactful as a water balloon and deflated even quicker when it fakes a series of twists to try and make her a more dynamic and involved character than she actually is. It’s use of the franchise’s real characters is similarly shallow with Sakura, Sasuke, and Kakashi being here for action scenes only(though teenage Kakashi being involved in yet another earth-shattering mission is very funny). Main man Naruto is a treat and a half though as unsurprisingly it’s him who actually has an effect on Yukie and in turn the plot’s development. There’s just one new problem, I’ve just realized we’ve already been here before. Yes not only is this film shallow, it’s borderline plagiaristic.

Indeed Naruto the Movie 1 is basically a rehashing of this franchise’s own Search for Tsunade arc but with none of the heart and even less kaiju fights. Tsunade’s own character is similarly depressed, violent towards Naruto, and escaping the responsibility of leading her homeland in it’s time of need but the difference is in how she’s written because Kishimoto fully leans into her destructive tendencies, making her a morally grey woman whose’s lost everything that would make her love this world. But just as Naruto sees the best in people we see Tsunade herself painfully ponder and then ultimately choose to shoulder the responsibility of her village, ending with her beating the big bad herself and earning the right to rule. Tsunade is an active and complex participant in her own story with Naruto as her catalyst and though he acts similarly for Yukie she herself never takes the reins of the tale. It’s a contrived story, emotionally empty and genuinely brain hurting to think about for more than 5 seconds but here’s the thing, I wasn’t watching this for the story in the first place, never was and maybe never will.

My main interest was in how they would adapt the visual storytelling of Masashi Kishimoto whose craft was what elevated Naruto the most amongst its peers and I gotta say anime Naruto just gets it. This is a perfect visual adaptation of his sensibilities towards composition, action, and character acting and as a straight up action flick it’s high art indeed. To illustrate I must explain why I even started watching in the first place and that’s all thanks to short form content, ew. One day I was scrolling like an absolute braindead hoser when I came across a cut of animation that sold me on this film in 90 seconds flat. It was set in a moody washed out bar with a drunken woman solemnly at the counter and as the perspective switched to a man at the back the tone suddenly screamed ominous. He begins to march towards her, his very steps moving with the camera with a weighty thud, his intentions most certainly ill. For a good minute I thought this was a cut of animation from an Oshii flick until bam a boy in bright orange slammed into the counter between the two and the man smoothly changed direction, slipping out of the bar while this boy very animatedly goes off on the poor woman. The thing is, I knew this boy and he looked so utterly out of place in this grim dive of a bar, not just thanks to the orange jumper but just how intensely the scene he just crashed into was directed. Naruto didn’t belong here and I just had to learn for myself what this was. This was of course famed animator Takeshi Honda‘s cut from this very film and I gotta say that might be the best character acting Naruto Uzumaki has ever had. And he wasn’t the only one producing solid gold.

There are two words to understand the animation of this film and they might sound basically the same but stick with me. This movie is weighty, every movement feels full and physical and hefty, like real martial arts. Simultaneously this movie has zero impact, every action upon reaching it’s target is rendered comically weightless and suddenly the filler nature of this film is revealed. Naruto can’t die but if I was to believe my eyes and the memory of his canon capabilities while watching this then I’d argue he should. More than once. And you know what, that’s fun, that’s fine, the action despite being unable to make an impact in context can still make me feel all the excitement I should so this exercise isn’t actually to point to another flaw in the system, it’s just highlighting the very thing that makes this movie such a blast. Nowhere else will you see a preteen outrun a train, nor see a woman let a child be brutally engulfed in a house’s worth of walls and of course that time in the final battle where Naruto eats earth headfirst after falling from a 100 metre vertical. The action is exaggerated beyond what the manga has done in this era of the story and it’s a joy to behold.

Many things have translated well to animation but the most obvious is the handsigns because duh. They were a fun visual in the manga but they weren’t slick, they were a pause before the fight choreography could really start hitting but in animation they’re right there in the thick of things, smooth as butter and oddly appealing. The hand to hand choreography is delicious, the aforementioned physicality making every hand thrown feel like a well oiled flurry and the opponent’s not being truly impacted just means more hands and more sakuga. The effects work blooms, smoke and fire fill out with a vengeance and everything is just fast, mile a minute blows utilizing some of the highest fidelity animation you could ask for. I got to witness my first animated Chidori before Sasuke got humbled most hilariously, I got to see Sakura dumpster a dude with explosive kunai, Kakashi… did things and finally Tetsuya Nishio himself gave me my first, most perfect, Rasengan. I love everything my eyes could drink up and the short runtime meant my eyes were drinking for an optimal amount of time.

Naruto the Movie 1: Ninja Clash in the Land of Snow is a worthless story, truly there was nothing there in that woeful script beyond a cheeky nod to its own format. I didn’t expect much but I at least expected something which I most certainly wasn’t given. But this is Naruto the Anime and by golly it’s a tremendous piece of work on that front, an avalanche of some of the best action animation I’ve ever seen and on every front visually it is so perfect I can’t even imagine what better could be. Ok I could make a better story next time but style is substance and as this didn’t overstay its welcome it never fell victim to its own plot and so my main takeaway was a smile. Animation is beautiful, Naruto is wonderful, so of course I’d love beautifully animated Naruto.

I’m still not sold on the kunai gatling gun though, in a world in the film age you’d think a machine gun would’ve been invented by now but alas kunai gatling guns are the way, bless them.

The franchise’s second feature film was directed by Hirotsugu Kawasaki with a screenplay by Yuka Miyataand aired in 2005

Naruto the Movie 2: Legend of the Stone of Gelel is a curious film in the context of it’s franchise. I enjoyed it more than it’s predecessor by the end, that is clear in my mind and in my heart. But I couldn’t argue it’s a better film, it’s craftsmanship has slipped and the writing isn’t night and day superior. More crucially though it is a lesser adaptation of Naruto‘s world because simply put it has no interest in it, this is a film so blatantly uncanonical that it borders on insulting, so thoroughly does it jump the sharknado that is Kishimoto’s own work. Here’s the thing though, amidst the nonsense, the knights and the shape shifting monsters lies a tale that embodies the spirit of Naruto more than it’s shell would have you think and in the end that seals the deal. It bleeds authentic albeit lesser Naruto in it’s heart of hearts and for that I ended my experience very happy indeed.

Not that you’d expect much of it given how weak it starts off, both in plotting and in production this is a shakier feature. The plot, sure I went in with no expectations but the production, now there’s a story. Because this film isn’t directed by someone I don’t know(no offense to Tensai Okamura) but by a man by the name of Hirotsugu Kawasaki. He’s actually done less directing work than Okamura but one feature in his filmography stands out and makes one assume great things for this specific flick and that film was 1998’s Spriggan. Spriggan is one of the great action spectacles of anime film so far as I’ve seen, a rollicking adventure boasting nonstop sakuga that would put even the prior Naruto movie to shame. It’s story isn’t worth remembering but the setpieces that spring forth from it were animated with such pizzazz that at times it felt like a grand Spielberg spectacle and the 90 minute runtime just runs away, something that the later Netflix series proved was a blessing. Kawasaki has maybe the most chops to direct a ninja action adventure, so why was the final result so well choppy? I can’t answer this but I would have to assume there wasn’t the same schedule to work with and so the ambition and attention to detail had to be toned down to something more manageable. I’d be lying if I said this was a perfect Naruto anime but I’d also be lying if I said it wasn’t a damn good Naruto anime nonetheless.

The setup is simple, we’re playing around with Naruto, Sakura and in Sasuke’s inexplicable absence we have Shikamaru to fill out the leading trio, plus the Sand ninja for good measure. Opposite of them lies a mysterious new, completely original threat, knights in shining armour!? The opening scene is actually pretty hard to take seriously seeing big armoured warriors with heavy maces going toe to toe with katana wielding ninja but thankfully those ninja have a Gaara on their side and he wraps things up nice and quick. Until they illuminate the sea from where their enemies rose and are greeted with a whole ass battleship. A battleship with sails sprouting from it’s hulking metal carapace and instead of cannons it has catapults. But otherwise yes, a modern mechanical battleship bearing knights in heavy armour. In any other story that would earn a hell yeah from me, in Naruto though, in my Naruto, now that’s just scandalous. And when Naruto was finally introduced chasing after a ferret thing right after my worries subsided not, could this miss the mark even more?

Sakura kept me on board because Sakura couldn’t be less bothered to be here. I don’t love Sakura as much as I want to, she gets shafted so hard and often in the back half of OG Naruto that it hurts but Sakura is a character I do enjoy when she’s with Naruto and more specifically when she’s fed up about being with Naruto. She was obviously a favourite of the staff because her character acting antics in these first few minutes are vastly more enjoyable and expressive than any of the action on display. My favourite though wasn’t one of her more animated moments but one of her least because the dead fish eyed face she makes on the bridge after socking Naruto without batting an eye is the type thing I live for. She doesn’t understand it and she would definitely be insulted by this assertion but I love Naruto and her dynamic the most thanks to their sibling quarrelling, man I missed that last time. Of course this is Sakura we’re talking about, getting overlooked and underused is her primary state of being and look who’s arrived to take the deurotagonist role, why it’s the knight in shining armour Temujin!

Temujin is this movie’s Yuki Furikaze and I have some thoughts. I didn’t like Yuki, in fact her ripoff Tsunade storyline but without the emotive and empathetic character underneath is what sunk Movie 1 more than anything. Temujin isn’t a better written character, he isn’t a more likeable person, heck he isn’t even cool. But he is an authentically Naruto character, one who occupies the position of antagonist until our little orange boy can beat the humanity back into him with sheer understanding and earnestness. I’m giving away the ending by saying that but I kinda have to, it’s only there that his character functions as intended, where the staple act of Talk no Jutsu worked its magic and where my heart opens to him. He never impressed throughout the length of this film but he never echoed some already played out archetype within this universe, never felt like the lesser of himself and so I found myself forgiving him where my heart remained as icy as the Land of Snow towards Yuki. He just works, enough.

The thing about Temujin is that he’s the only believable Naruto character this film introduces because the Stone of Gelel and those in search of their power are some of the most out of pocket characters you could imagine. These warriors ride their battleship right onto land, revealing it to be a mountain sized mechanical monster that carves through the land reminiscent of the Sand Crawlers of Star Wars, all led by one Haido. He initially appears as an affable fellow, a man of the books over brawn but unsurprisingly that is just a cover for his evil plots, plots that’ll eventually turn Temujin against him. The titular stones he seeks give one immense, borderline nuclear power, and by infusing them within their bodies the soldiers of Haido can transform into beasts. Which I’m sorry was a bridge too far, yes Naruto is the body horror battle shonen to me but these instances of anthropomorphine transformation were always lame and never really added to the action itself, they just took me out. Especially Haido’s own which doesn’t even try to be unique, he’s basically just an alien from Dragon Ball at that point.

The pacing is worse than the previous flick in part to the expanded yet terminally underused cast and lesser animation, there just simply wasn’t enough here to be interested in the entire, slightly longer length. The Sand ninja are welcome but like say Sasuke and Kakashi in the last film they’re set dressing for maybe a battle or two and nothing else, they don’t need to be here really. I keep motioning towards some lesser production but I need to specify that it’s lesser in comparison, on it’s own terms this is a sweet picture. Sure, there are some wonky looking cuts(Shikamaru jumping through the trees is one) and the background art more often than not looks like mud, a slight downgrade over the previous one’s painterly touch. Most noticeable is the bigger use of 3D props and backgrounds which I wouldn’t say have aged particularly well, the textures on the crawling fortress in particular look bad close up. The animation itself though, why that’s the reason to watch.

Movie 1 is what I’d expect from the guy who made Spriggan which is why it’s kinda funny he didn’t actually make it. Kawasaki’s own turn in the directors seat for Naruto is less about faithfully and fantastically adapting Kishimoto and more about leaning into anime visual tropes, like loose character acting and a more playful use of color. It’s the character acting that actually stands out more than the action, model consistency isn’t a goal here and so everyone can squash and stretch to their hearts content with Sakura being the primary source of many wonderfully wacked out key frames. Her main action scene at the end has some of the funniest drawings I’ve seen in a minute and they hold on to them too, fully intending for these wonderful expressions to be showcased over any sense of coolness. The final set piece is definitely weaker visually than the last with Naruto’s own fights being pretty boring as Haido just tanks blows, even rasengan like nothing. So, what made it land harder?

We gotta bring it back to Temujin and his arc which I already spoiled but for effect we can do it here too. When Haido makes his choice and reveals his villainy to the youngster all is lost, he loses his own stone and with it his power. He stays down just long enough for things to go from bad to worse when the Gelel mine they’re fighting in starts to activate which would almost certainly blow this part of the world to kingdom come. I wasn’t invested in the person of Temujin and when he rose to make the ultimate sacrifice to save the day with a frankly ridiculous space wormhole jutsu I thought it a fitting end. Naruto though, Naruto would never. The boy who hadn’t done much the entire film and was currently knocked out after his fight with Haido wakes up with a jolt, remembering Sasuke and his own struggles the hero enters to make the save. Despite the cataclysmic visuals when Temujin falls into the abyss of his own creation every sound falls away and we get a moment of peace as he accepts death, and then out of view someone reaches out and catches his hand. It’s Naruto, of course it’s Naruto and I’d have it no other way.

Naruto the Movie 2: Legend of the Stone of Gelel isn’t a clear improvement of a story and especially of a production, it may not even be respectful of the world in which it so happens to be set it but I think the ending and the emotions it filled me with trump anything the previous film managed to pull outta me. The pacing is inconsistent as is the animation with the action never stacking up to the previous but with extremely playful character animation it still found ways to charm me. It’s less Naruto the Animation and more Naruto and the Stone of Doom, more adventurous in spirit and style while ignorant to the setting it springs from and I can’t say that’s a good precedent, but I accept it here. We’re still missing any absolute cinema but this gets the job done and was worth the 90 minutes, Naruto just can’t not put a smile on my face.

The franchise’s third feature film was directed by Toshiyuki Tsuru who also wrote the screenplay and aired in 2006.

Naruto the Movie 3: Guardians of the Crescent Moon Kingdom really pushes the definition of theatrical production to it’s most pathetic low with a feature fully bereft of charisma and self respect. This is filler in a way even the flimsy first 2 can’t compare too, a dead on arrival story that still manages to drag on for a whole 10 minutes longer than the first whilst providing the least amount of action in this trilogy. Without as much action to tide one over the narratives own disinterested form stands out as downright offensive. This has left me with zero material to write about in comparison to the other 2 entries and with even less impetus to put those words to page, here I stand anyway 6 months later to fulfill this obligation in a mood probably similar to the pitch meeting itself. Anyway, at least we have a Lee this time amiright!

To set the stage a bit we can at least establish the visual identity of this shebang, or more specifically the lack thereof. This trilogy began with a properly cinematic affair of airtight artistic refinement before turning into a much more mixed but much more playful style and it’s the second film’s more modest design that is found here, but with maybe less highlights. The art direction is fine, maybe leaning heavy on the shadows to give the drawings a bit more of a sun soaked heat since this is inexplicably a more casual vacation ish movie. The character art though, eesh that’s taken a hit. There’s just something off about the drawings most of the time and not in the expressive oddball manner of it’s predecessor, no instead the character just look distinctly off most of the time in a cheap feeling manner that make’s me think this was a rush job that couldn’t correct for consistency. The direction is uninspired, Toshiyuki Tsuru of Gungrave fame(?) is in charge this time as well as handling the script, a match made on the moon. By which I mean the film titled the “Crescent Moon” indeed has a crescent shaped island kingdom at its center with the most common visual metaphor in sight being the moon. Drink everytime it happens for all I care, unfortunately you’d be sloshed by the time the fun begins but you’d probably have a better time than I did

A time honoured Naruto anime tradition is deciding whether or not to skip the filler but since I ain’t watched allat I can only put in my 2 cents here. Yes, you should skip the filler, specifically the first 65 minutes of the film because not only will the narrative still make perfect sense but it’ll actually be enjoyable, in other words the first hour of this film is a joke. No literally, this film is about as serious as I am and remember I just told you all to skip a majority of it. So what exactly happens here…I dunno I forget. Nah I kid this is the story of the Tsuki(take a shot) family and their ninja escort of Team 7 minus a Sasuke but plus a Rock Lee who’ll eventually fight to retake their kingdom. Firstly though we have to pad this runtime and so we misadventure for a solid 30 minutes to establish that the Tsuki family heirs are vain and selfish, used to living in the lap of luxury. I mean main boy Hikaru would rather play a Gameboy(I see the moon on the back, take a shot) than talk to Naruto which is understandable, kidruto is annoying.