English Dub Review: Naruto Shippuden: For My Friend

Hey, look! There’s an actual war about to happen!

Spoilers Below

The Fourth Great Ninja War is about to begin, finally! It took a very long time from Sasuke and Madara attacking the Five Kage Summit, to all of the troops going to war, but everyone is finally getting into position. And of course, Naruto is still hiding, playing with building blocks.

This episode really has two parts. The first, being the Allied Shinobi Forces gathering in front of their commanders, with the second being Madara and Kabuto sending their resurrected pawns into battle. The Allied Shinobi Force segment was so big, it actually sandwiched what was going on with Madara and Kabuto. Nothing intermingled, except for Anko and her squad getting beat to hell. Is it me, or is Anko a lot less bad ass than what her reputation says? She has done nothing of merit since her introduction, and then begins to cower when people mention Orochimaru. I hope you like captivity, dumb ass.

The only thing that makes”For My Friend” work is Gaara’s speech to his troops. For most of the episode, they have been fighting and bickering with one another, because of some stupid shit that happened years ago. No one noticed that Gaara had a bunch of his little all seeing sand eyes floating about, so he saw everything that was going on. Those eyes pushed the people involved away from one another, and Gaara delivered the speech of his life. He touched on how every person needs to put aside their nation’s past with the other nations, because for this war, every nation has become one nation to fight Madara and Kabuto. He then said that this war was to save Naruto, just as Naruto saved Gaara from himself, and ended his feelings of hating the world and the people in it. It was a moving speech, and a must watch moment for the series.

There could have been so much more to both segments. To be honest, you could have split them, and put them in their own episodes. Expand on Gaara’ speech, and show more of how each nation’s crap doesn’t matter in the long run, especially if everyone wants to live. The writers could have also shown how truly massive the Edo Tensei army could have been, with all of the coffins opening, and everyone moving out. The first eleven minutes just felt like a waste, and disjointed from the speech. It’s almost as if two sets of writers took park in writing.

As much as I loved the second half of “For My Friend,” there was nothing else going on for it. The speech lived up to the episode’s title, because Gaara’s speech proved that he would lay down his life to save his first friend.  The excitement should step up again next week, because the battles begin! Check in next week, and see who fights who!