English Dub Review: Naruto Shippuden “Mifune vs. Hanzo”

Overview (Spoilers Below)
I hate to keep drawing comparisons between an anime and its manga, but a lot of the times it’s unavoidable. When the Hanzo / Mifune fight occured during the manga, there was so much emotion. There was a mutual respect between the two that transcended the pages. It made you feel like it was something worth emotionally investing into. There was three exciting chapters chronicling this fight, and the writers boiled this down into a one episode snoozer that lacked any real feeling.

I am sure that most of the problem is that the two voice actors, Kirk Thornton as Mifune and Richard Epcar as Hanzo, lacked any feelings when they were talking. They were the voice actor equivalent of Ben Stein. This fight of honor was stripped down, and made to feel like a just another fight to move the story along. Somehow, it felt like a filler episode, even though this took place in Chapters 530-532 of the manga. “Mifune vs. Hanzo” is the first time in recent history that I have been completely let down by the inability to bring a faithful adaptation of the manga to anime.

I think it would have been better off to just let this pass over and move on to something else. Hopefully, since Chiyo and Kimimaro are still in the area, things can pick up sooner or later. Unfortunately, it seems like the writers are following the manga to a tee, because they are starting to skip around. “Golden Bonds” was on the shoreline, with a battle still raging. This week, they go into the forest and drop the shoreline fight for a couple weeks. Was this worth it? No. I mean, we’re going to see more of Kimimaro within a week or so, and that’s always good. He hasn’t been used since his fight with Gaara and Lee in episodes 123 through 127 of the first series. So, hopefully next week we see Kimimaro fight a bit more.

This abridged version of the manga was disappointing. “Mifune vs. Hanzo” was a sterilized portrayal of two great fighters doing what they do best: fighting. This fight should have had more suspense, because Hanzo alone was the man who survived in a fight against Jiraiya, Tsunade, and Orochimaru and named them the Three Legendary Sannin. He was the former leader of Amegakure, before the Six Paths of Pain killed him. “Mifune vs. Hanzo” just made him look like a chump. Thank god this was a merciful single episode, because I may have cried over the bastardizations of Hanzo and Mifune.

Catch “Mifune vs. Hanzo” here!