English Dub Review: Naruto Shippuden “Assemble! Allied Shinobi Forces”

As Officer Barbrady used to say: Move along, nothing to see here.

Spoilers!

Those words have never rung so true before. It’s not like “Assemble!” was a bad episode by any stretch of the means, but all it was all housekeeping and cleanup before the war begins. Something is telling me this is going to go pretty short.

The high point of “Assemble!” comes near the end, when Kabuto goes through most of the roster that he is reanimating. Kabuto has gotten an impressive list, including all of the dead Akatsuki members (minus Konan), the former jinchuriki, former Kage, Zabuza, Haku, Chiyo, Kimimaro, Asuma, Dan, and Hizashi Hyuga. When I saw the list in the manga, I was impressed. When I see it animated, I almost shit a brick.

The other point that was pretty neat was the beginning of the Allied army forming ranks in front of each squad leader. It was also pretty cool to see the interaction between the different nations. It’s something that should go into detail later on, but everyone seemed pretty cool towards one another, even if it was just feeling each other out. When you read this list, it’s a venerable “dafuq” moment. Darui of the Cloud is the First Division Commander, specializing in mid-range attacks. Kitsuchi of the Stone is the Commander of the Second Division, specializing in short range attacks. Kakashi is the Third Division Commander, specializing in short to mid-range attacks. Gaara of the Sand is the Commander of the Fourth Division, and is Commander of the entire Army. His division specializes in long range attacks, of course. And the real “dafuq” comes from Mifune leading the Fifth Division, which specializes in…well…Special Battle attacks.

So, yeah, that list is really weird. Darui and Kitsuchi haven’t shown much except they’re the right hand of their respective Kage. So, I guess they’ll get a pass. Kakashi and Gaara are REALLY powerful, so that makes sense. But Mifune isn’t even a ninja. Is this a way to get him more screen time? I don’t buy that one for a second.  This befuddles me, and feels like the only way Kishimoto could get Mifune into a battle to give us some senseless background story later on.

But those two points are the only to parts of “Assemble!” that did anything. The rest, including the Tsuchikage moving the island closer to the Cloud Village, did nothing to advance the story. I’d have wanted to see more of Naruto training his tailed beast chakra, but that shown for about five minutes. We know there’s a big something about to go down with the Allied Forces, but it looks like we wait until next episode.

You can watch “Assemble! Allied Shinobi Forces” on Hulu.