For the first time ever the Naruto anime series appears on Blu-ray (also available on DVD) with this recently released Naruto movie (it’s the 2nd movie in the Shippuden series). Now that the holiday season has already started, it’s a great time to catch up on the series if you haven’t yet. You can watch the Naruto Shippuden anime episodes on Viz.com and Crunchyroll.com.

Since airing in the US back in 2005, Naruto has become a well known name in the anime series. The story follows a troublemaker ninja who eventually goes from troublemaker to a hard-working dimwitted ninja, who is respected by the village that shunned him. Now older Naruto has become much stronger and gets involved in new adventures along with his friends and mentors in the Hidden Village of the Leaf.

Naruto Shippuden The Movie: Bonds begins at the Hidden Village of the Leaf and is attacked by unknown Ninjas with “strange” flying machines. The village ends up being damaged and destroyed with many injuries. The mysterious ninjas retreat and Tsunade figures them as remnants of the Sky Country, rivals of the Leaf. Now it’s up to our heroes to find the enemies and save the village from further destruction.

The movie gives fangirls what they want and that’s more Sasuke. While he appears in maybe 15 minutes total, he’s still a cool badass as always. Naruto wants to be the hero and to be someone that everyone can look up to, which leads him to tons of trouble while developing a weird relationship with Amaru.

What I didn’t like about the movie is how Naruto is portrayed. He’s so weak in this version. In the series he is seen as less of a trickster and more of a powerful ninja. Then again, it’s how he was portrayed for a long time, so it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise. There was a lack of fighting in this movie compared to others and many of the scenes were short. Only the final battle, which was broken into 2 parts, really saved this movie, but fell short of being great like the first Shippuden movie.

Video Quality

The Naruto movies have always had way better quality than any episodes, but I guess that can be said about all anime movies with great visuals and action scenes make it a nice watch. When you watch any anime/movie the best scenes will always be the fighting/action sequences and background designs and the movie delivers both. The best scene has to be Naruto and Sasuke teaming together to take down the Zero Tails and Shinnō with combined attacks but the best scene goes to the intro when Sasuke uses his Chidori’s to destroy a waterfall.

Audio Quality

One of the best options for animes is the ability to choose between the original Japanese dialogue or English sub. Growing up and watching Naruto and Shippuden weekly online with Japanese voices made it my personal preference, but if you are a fan that watches it on Disney XD you get to enjoy yourself especially if you are fan of Yuri Lowenthall voicing as Sasuke since he gets some screen time.

Extras

As for extras, they only thing offered is a trailer for the upcoming release of Bleach: Fade to Black movie, and a few trailers for the Naruto Shippuden The Movie: Bonds from Japan, and art works.  Nothing stood out and

Video: great visuals on Blu-ray, showcasing great animation and techniques

Audio: With your choice of English or Japanese audio its pick your preference with explosions and Justsu’s everywhere

Extras: No real Extras worth watching

Grade: B