Review: Naruto Shippuden “Power: Episode 2”

The “Power” Arc continues, this time, with an emphasis on Dokku and the children. It seems like the kids have a great deal of respect for Dokku, even though he sees himself as a gigantic failure. What you want to keep an eye on, however, is how Naruto is acting, especially when he’s dreaming and in front of the cage of the Nine-Tails. The story is there. It works, and it flows.

There is something, however, that really detracts from what could have been a great episode. The worst part of this episode was the shoddy animation. It seemed like the animators took a break for “Power: Episode 2” and left it to their children to do. I understand that the mouth movements were supposed to fit better with the Japanese dub, but how can you have the entire scene be still, and only animate (and poorly at that) Yamato’s mouth? What the literal shit happened?

It’s a quality drop like this that is par for the course for Naruto, unfortunately. I was blown away by “Power: Episode 1” and gave it one of the best scores Naruto has fetched for a non-canon episode. There is only so far a good story and pretty good acting can go if the episode looks like shit. As soon as the plot moved away from the “Village Hidden in the Hole,” the backups came in, and kind of shit all over the episode. If you remember back when Naruto fought Pain when Konoha got blown up, and Naruto was chasing Pain on the water as he was transforming closer the Nine-Tails, the animation started tripping out, and looking like a bowl of dicks. Well, “Power: Episode 2” went that route.

I said earlier, that the story worked, and it’s pretty true. There isn’t anything there that makes you scratch your head. THe story needed to move away from the wasteland of the village, and progress the story to the next plot point, and I am guessing it has something to do with all of the snakes Naruto ingested before Kabuto showed up. They hinted at it with Naruto hunching over before, and when he was dreaming before he ate. I know the story is only going to get bigger and better, one can only hope that the rest of the show follows suit.