English Dub Review: Naruto Shippuden “White Zetsu’s Trap”

For a filler episode, “White Zetsu’s Trap” wasn’t terrible.

Like I said before the jump, “White Zetsu’s Trap” wasn’t terrible at all. But don’t misconstrue that statement, because there were a lot of flaws. The story revolves around Hinata, Shino, and Kiba getting stranded inside a mine with a colony of White Zetsus. The mine explodes, resulting in suspicions of a White Zetsu infiltrating the team.

I thought it was ingenious how Shino deduced who was the fake, and got the other real ninja out. Using hand signs, as well as his personal knowledge of his teammates was one of the smartest ideas I’ve seen. Using different characters as leads besides Naruto give a whole different outlook and means to solving problems that Naruto would just power through. It was refreshing, but won’t happen very often in the canon.

Now don’t get me wrong, but most of the story was actually very well tied into the war, almost exactly to the point where the White Zetsus are actually still relevant in the canon story. What didn’t work was the ending of the episode. Everything boiled down to needing to kill every White Zetsu so their embarrassing secrets don’t get out into the public. That seemed rather childish, even though the ninja are still children.

Also, the animation got really flimsy when it came to the fighting sequences. It’s been often rumored that there are two teams, one handles the narrative, and one handles the fighting. If that is true, there is nothing but solidified evidence in this episode, because the animation is a tale of two different styles. When there is nothing going on, the animation is on par. However, when there is fighting, especially with Akamaru, the animation feels wonky, and at points it feels like the animation is creeping at a few frames per second. It definitely wasn’t the best effort put forth this week.

I guess, as a filler episode, this is one of the better ones. Most of the time, a filler episode just goes off on a tangent, doing something that has no relevancy to the story. But, the writers actually did some homework, and got “White Zetsu’s Trap” done right. I mean, it’s nowhere near what the canon episodes have been, but it’s definitely not in the normal filler trap. It’s a definite step up from what we’ve gotten in the past. I think it’s worth a watch.