chuunin_archive | NARUTO MOVIE 2009: THOSE WHO INHERIT THE WILL OF FIRE

shigeruhiko.livejournal.com posting in

It is that time again, my friends, where we gather around and listen to stories of the will of fire. Oh yes.

It is time for a report on the new Naruto Shippuuden movie! This movie, as promised, has the entire rookie nine plus Team Gai, and lots of Kakashi. It’s truly a very well put together All Cast movie, and I was super pleased with it. Seriously, we left the theater saying that every year we complain about how lame such and such was, this year we had very little to complain about.

How could I complain, my favorite characters are in this movie? 8D

Spoilers abound, even in the cast list there may be some (for who is in it, anyway, and in the case of two, what their role sort of was). Pretty light in the cast list, but if you are SUPER SENSATIVE then yeah, don’t look.

For those wondering who makes appearances, Here’s the list:

Uchiha Obito
Hatake Kakashi (Young and adult)
Rin (She doesn’t say anything though)
Naruto
Sakura
Sai
Shikamaru
Ino
Chouji
Neji
Lee
Tenten
Kiba
Akamaru
Shino
Hinata
Tsunade (younger and older)
Shizune
Gaara
Temari
Kankuro
Flashes of those filler kids from Sand
Jiraiya
Orichimau (younger versions)
Sandaime (HE NEVER DIES—but ahem, he was younger in this movie too)
IZUMO AND KOTETSU<33333 Yes, they were together. THEY ARE NEVER APART. But always failing at Gate Duty. Bless them<3
Probably someone else I am forgetting. D: THERE WERE A LOT OF PEOPLE, OKAY.
Sasuke was not in this movie. Except in a flashback. Which there were a LOT of. We should call this movie “The Will of Fire in Flashbacks.” Mind you, I’m not complaining. Flashbacks mean more of my favorite character. 8D

Things that happen in this movie you should be aware of: There are copious amounts of flashbacks, rocks falling, the near start of Great Ninja War 4, gay (and when I say that, for a change I REALLY DO MEAN THAT, it’s not a joke), a Gary Stu that wasn’t really all that Gary Stu-ish (at least not overbearingly so, just challenging enough to be a problem), and a woman with amazingly jiggly breasts that needed more screen time. Hey, they were pretty awesome!

So, this year, five crazy English teachers descended upon the Osaka theater to discover the wonders and joys of the Will of Fire. 8D

Warning: Some of this may be remembered out of order! I started this two days after I saw it, and then have been on vacation all month, writing this when I have free time. It’s long, but as blow by blow as I could get, since it’ll still be awhile until it gets released on DVD.

We start out this affair with Sai flying along on his paint bird in a thunderstorm. They are in Iwa for a mission, and it starts to storm. This is bad because Sai kind of gets tossed off his bird while trying to dodge this thing that comes outta no-where with EXPLODING FEATHERS, and falls to the ground, which hurts.

Naruto screams for “SAAAAII” and starts running after him, along with the remaining members of Team Kakashi. The flying creature and some lion looking thing also attack, and Naruto gets injured in the getaway. But at least the unconscious Sai is safe, right? Right? ~~Bueller?~~

Sakura, however, is not amused that Naruto is more concerned about Sai then himself, tears OFF HIS JACKET and is all like “YOU ARE AN IDIOT, LET ME PUNCH YOU INTO A WALL and then heal you.” (I can’t wait for their love to be canon. I will live my JiraTsuna fantasies out through them, hahahaha. Don’t judge me.)

Meanwhile, Kakashi is all “OH GOD, WHY ME,” and then looks up and at the sky and thinks about Obito. Which is awesome. For me anyway, but probably not the majority of other Kakashi fans, who wish he was thinking about (insert favorite Kakashi OTP here).

We get the title screen, which is fun, and then we start back in Konoha with Kakashi giving his report to Tsunade about the mission. (I think, I could be remembering this out of order).

We are also treated to our first look at the villains, some weird ass looking trap-child (seriously animators, what is it with you and your filler villains that look like little girls but are actually boys? Genderbending is cool and fun, but this one was seriously hard to get around), an amazingly jiggly breasted, barely clothed woman with awesome hair, and two guys who look like Psycho Mantis rejects.

I like filler villains sometimes. They look so. . . . SPECIAL.

Meanwhile, at Yakiniku, Team Asuma is eating together. (Note: Yes, Asuma is dead in this movie, sorry guys!) Chouji is eating like normal, and Shikamaru is sitting next to Ino (Oh my, cheating on the lady from Sand, are we? Ahahaha), and almost says the “D” word. Or “F” word, if you are speaking in English (and not romanizing Japanese). I kinda balked at that, Shikamaru calling Chouji a fattie? But whatever, sometimes people slip. They hear noise from next door, and lo! It is Team Gai and Team Kurenai chowing down together too. Hilarity ensues. Even Akamaru gets some red meat. Good Kiba!

Then, crashing the party and meaning well, Naruto comes in DRAGGING Sai with him. Sai, who is very “THIS IS NOT A GOOD IDEA, NARUTO” while dragging along his IV DRIP, and Naruto who says, “OH SAI, SHUSH. HEY EVERYONE! MORE MEAT, SHIKAMARU’S TREATING!” Poor, poor Shikamaru. So, the party’s just about to start when Sakura appears and beats the shit out of her patients. OBVIOUSLY the route to healing all wounds is through pounding your patients with your fists of almighty justice. Sai at least attempts to explain that he didn’t want to come, but Sakura, the loving nursemaid that she is, drags them back to the hospital by their ears.

And beats them into bed. Seriously, I love this woman.

Kakashi stops by to see how his cute students are doing, and brings them presents. To Sai, he gives a book on Girl Love (WTF KAKASHI JUST WHAT) and when Naruto starts going “EH” Kakashi’s all “Well, I know you don’t really read, so, here.” He hands Naruto a nice jewelry looking box, and when Naruto opens is there ~~is a ring~~ are his ~~balls~~ bells, from the magical bell test of old.

“You remember these, don’t you?” Kakashi asks.

This can only lead to a FLASHBACK. Of the first Bell test were the witnesses to. From what I can tell, they DID reanimate these flashbacks. It’s not entirely noticeable that they did, which I’m not sure is good or bad. This, also, is pretty much the only time you see Sasuke in this movie.

They look pretty beaten up (wtf was Kakashi doing with them?!) and tells Naruto to fix them.

AS YOU CAN IMAGINE, THAT DOES NOT GO OVER WELL WITH OUR HERO. Who bitches at Kakashi until Kakashi is all “Lalala, good bye rest up!” and leaves.

That night, weird shit happens. The sky gets all crazy, and in the world, the trap child calls out and is like “I WANT YOUR BLOODLINE LIMITS. GIMME. OR I WILL START NINJA WORLD WAR FOUR! AHAHAHAHAHA. OH AND MY NAME IS HIRUKO.”

Everyone is all “OH NOES WHAT WILL WE DO.” Gaara, over in Sand watching this, is not really impressed.

Naruto, meanwhile, is sleeping through this like NOTHING is happening. I guess if it’s not about Sasuke or his friends, he doesn’t care. Ohhh Naruto<3.

This was the part of the movie when I realized: Gaara no longer has a tailed best inside of him, and will probably be fighting in this movie. I DON’T CARE IF THIS IS FILLER, YAY AWESOME. (He does not fight at this time.)

Tsunade is all “Well, this is NOT GOOD,” and she looks concerned. She may have even voices something about remembering Hiruko, but I could be wrong.

So the Feudal Lords have a chat with Tsunade (there was probably a lead into this), and they basically are like “Look, do whatever it takes, but get this matter settled. WAR, WE DO NOT WANT IT OKAY?”

So Tsunade goes off and waits for Gaara to have a meeting of Kage minds. Sand and Leaf still have their alliance, after all. So Gaara’s in his pallaquin, and there’s this bird thing that flies overhead, and pelts the ground with—EXPLODING FEATHERS.

Rocks fall. It looks like people just might die. (Gaara does not die at this time. You looked a little worried there, so I thought, Oh, back to the story.)

Tsunade gets a report from an ANBU who didn’t get the message that they are supposed to be useless, saying that the Kazekage’s entourage just got crushed by rocks. In case you didn’t get it, THAT IS A BAD THING. They return to Konoha.

Meanwhile, creepy filler kid is all “BWAHAHAHAHA, I have FOUR ELEMENTS. I JUST NEED A FIFTH TO COMPLETE MY ALCHEMY!” He’s trying to have the ability to use all kinds of jutsu, I think. To be honest, I don’t really remember. He is missing someone from Fire. But, there is someone that he wants with a Will of Fire. (There’s someome I want with a will of fire too, but why is it the villains get what they want and I don’t? OH RIGHT, I’m real, they aren’t. GOTCHA)

Kakashi’s sleeping, and has some crazy ass dream. He’s a kid again, with the sharingan (wah), and floating feet come out ad are like “Kakashiiiiiii, you remember me, right?” At first, I thought “OH NO! Obito’s haunting Kakashi’s dreams!” but no, it was Hiruko, putting his mark on Kakashi.

Kakashi wakes up with red eyes, and does not seem happy.

In a meeting with Tsunade, he talks to her about sealing his eye and Hiruko having chosen him ten years ago for this crazy madness. She’s reluctant but agrees to let Kakashi go off to die and protect the village. AWESOME. Not really.

In the graveyard, Kakashi’s chatting with Obito about how he’s gonna die protecting the village just like he did. Leaving, he walks into Shikamaru, who was chatting up Asuma about current events. Kakashi’s all like “Yeah, tell Naruto to stay put.” And Shikamaru complains. But Kakashi also tells Shikamaru that he’s a good ninja. Aww.

So after leaving the hospital and downing some ramen, Naruto is happily fed and sees Kakashi heading out of the village. So, he chases down his sensei because Naruto likes Kakashi, and probably just wanted to see what he was up to. But as he follows Kakashi and Kakashi ignores him, Naruto gets worried.

He catches up with Kakashi at the Gate to the village, where Izumo and Kotetsu are all “Nono, Kakashi, we can’t let anyone leave the—OH GOD KIDNEY PUNCHES WTF *PASS OUT*.” Naruto starts yelling after Kakashi, and then Shikamaru appears and grabs Naruto, telling him to CHILL OUT. Naruto ignores this SAGE ADVICE, and Shikamaru puts Asuma’s knife to his throat and says “Look, it’s an order from the Hokage, he’s leaving.”

Moments later, in a meeting with Shikamaru, Sakura learns that they had to throw Naruto in a cell in the Konoha dungeons to make sure he didn’t chase after Kakashi. Sakura starts to say something, but is VERY dismissed along with the other rookie 9 who were brought in to be told what had just happened. Of course, Tsunade has more to say to Shikamaru, and Sakura eavesdrops a bit, learns that Kakashi is on a suicide mission, and is like “SHIT. Naruto and I must do. . . SOMETHING!”

Naruto is yelling to be let go in his cell, and he is tied up in a sleeping bag, wiggling and flailing like an inch worm on crack. Sakura talks to him, and she breaks him out of jail to go get their sensei. Breaks him out with her FIRST, and nearly breaks him in the process. <3<3<3

So Tsunade has to rope up the rookie nine and team Gai and sends them after Naruto and Sakura, who have sort of defected from the village to go and stop Kakashi from being a martyr to save the village from a filler villain. (It’s a noble cause, he has so much more to live for!) Sai is not joining them, as he is still in the hospital. I’m sure Danzou (Sir Not Appearing In This Movie) is super pleased about that.

Ahem.

So they catch up with Naruto and Sakura, and there is this big discussion about “COME BACK, WE DON’T WANT TO HURT YOU.” Naruto turns around and gives them this speech that is just . . . yeah. This movie makes you really want to believe in Naruto as the future hokage. From this point in the movie on, you can really see that, and it was all sorts of wonderful.

Everyone tries telling Naruto that they don’t like Kakashi running off to die either, but they can’t let their emotions get in the way of the rules. They understand that Naruto and Sakura feel they need to stop Kakashi, but rules are rules and it’s an order from the hokage.

Naruto holds up those bells Kakashi gave him, and says, “Guys who break the rules are trash! But! The first thing Kakashi-sensei taught me was that those who don’t think their friends are important are worse then trash!” This sways some of them momentarily.

And then they get attacked by a guy who summons tentacle monsters. Nope, not even close to kidding. They might have little dragon heads instead of certain round blunt heads, but it’s all the same. Hinata gets tied up along with some others, and Naruto and Sakura make their escape!

Hinata’s group gets freed by Tenten (She is useful!) and then Team Gai stays behind while Team Kurenai and Shikamaru head on.

One by one, Sakura and Naruto manage to lose their pursuers because of the three minor villains of the movie. Team Gai is fighting the tentacle monster man, Team Kurenai fights the lady with jiggly boobs, and Team Shikamaru is left to fight the guy with the exploding feather monster. And at some point, Sai rejoins them. Mmm, sexy Sai. Also, everyone magically has cloaks when they didn’t, to which we figure that some random ANBU was handing them out as the kids went by.

Team Gai kicks ass when they destroy the man with tentacle monsters by joining Lee’s Omote Renge attack with Neji’s Hakkeshoukaiten. It’s pretty amazing and awesome to see the team REALLY work together, and was probably one of my favorite moments!

Team Kurenai fights and eventually backs their baddie into a hole in the ground, but not before she combines with her beast to become a Seymour reject from Final Fantasy X. She falls in, and finds out that Oh, those shadows? Are really Shino’s bugs.

She didn’t scream for very long. D:

Team Shikamaru had their villain under control, until he summoned his friends and then they all joined together in one huge pile of “UM, THIS IS REALLY NOT GOOD GUYS.” And hey, the new chimera breathes FIRE, YAY. (I like this FMA/Naruto crossover times, it’s fun)

MEANWHILE, back in the gorge where Tsunade had been waiting for Gaara, the war forces of Sand and Leaf are waiting to hear what was going on with Gaara. If he’s dead, it’s time for war. Even though this is CLEARLY Hiruko’s fault, Sand doesn’t really buy that.

WE DO, because we see Gaara have a mini-flash back to a few hours before, in the valley where he went down. Jiraiya showed up and waited to see what happened to the Kazekage, and when they get to Gaara’s palanquin, and he’s not in it, no one is really surprised when they see Gaara sitting on a rock. Jiraiya lets Gaara know what crazy shit his BFF Naruto is up to, and Gaara reluctantly goes off to play a role in the movie.

Jiraiya shows up to relay a message from Gaara to prove he’s alive. Everyone is relieved, but the war machines are still waiting in place. Tsunade is NOT AMUSED by Jiraiya’s flamboyant entrance. But I was. OMATASE! Teehee.

So, as Team Kakashi flies over the rocks, there is Gaara, waiting there like before. He’s still using that cool sand transportation, and this is where he and Gaara have a nice little fight.

I enjoyed this part, and the animation looked really cool here. I missed seeing Gaara in action, I like how he and Naruto interact. Eventually, Gaara understands Naruto’s purpose, and lets him move on. I have spent little time on this fight, but let me reassure you—IT IS AWESOME.

Meanwhile, Team Konoha is fighting the chimera, and they send Shikamaru off to stop Team Kakashi. We are treated to more Tenten usefulness and Hinata and Neji working together. IT IS PRETTY AWESOME.

Team Naruto catches up to Kakashi about the same time that Shikamaru catches up to them. Naruto grabs Kakashi and Kakashi appears to not have heard anything. But, spotting a seal on Kakashi’s arm, Naruto is all “WHAT THE__?!” and Shikamaru explains that Kakashi went to Tsunade to seal his power against Hiruko getting it.

Speaking of the little devil, he is not amused that people are trying to take away his Kakashi. Naruto and Sakura try fighting him, but due to some strange thing on his palm, he can suck in all Chakra attacks, and spit them right back at you. I think he called it something like Judgment. It was an English name and I remembered laughing cause it was silly.

Then, as Naruto is chasing them into Hiruko’s cave of wonders and magical delights where he keeps his other bloodline limit choices hanging on Xs, we are treated to some more flashbacks. It is unclear to me if he was talking to Naruto and co. or not when he was doing the flashbacks. However, to me it didn’t matter, what mattered was I GOT TO SEE OBITO. So, if any of you are fans of the Gaiden, you’re in luck. We get some really sweet flash backs here of Obito manifesting his sharingan, and then the cave in that showed a little more then I really wanted to see. Yes, I am a wuss, but I didn’t really want to see the rock performing it’s task.

And then we get Hiruko talking about Kakashi and fapping to his sharingan and his pain. Again. Ohhh Hiruko. (Isn’t that the name of one of Sasori’s puppets? Like, the ugly one that looks better then him?)

Hiruko’s past involved the Sannin. He knew them growing up, and he was a crazy mad scientist like Orochimau grew up to be. But Hiruko was creating chimera by combining people with animals and all sorts of weird things. They found out and tried to stop him, but he’d already gone into hiding.

And now, with Kakashi and the four other bloodline limit choices, he would create himself as an ultimate chimera of all these different bloodline traits, and become something greater. (Greater then what, Kakashi? Don’t kid yourself, dude)

So, at the start of an eclipse, Hiruko starts his crazy process of absorbing the powers into himself. Naruto reaches Kakashi too late, and the man gets sucked into the weird vortex as well. We see the magenkyou sharingan activate in Kakashi’s eye as the swirling vortex takes him, and Naruto dives in after him. Somehow, someway, and with the use of a bunch of kagebunshin, Naruto gets Kakashi out of the muck and free.

But Kakashi is pretty dead looking. Naruto starts to freak out, and is near tears when Kakashi cracks open his eyes and says “Ohayou.” I’ll admit, I squeed a little at that. It was really cute. And painfully in character. (I don’t have high expectations of anime movies)

We are then treated to the ultimate fight sequence, which was pretty cool. I mean, Naruto fires up over nine thousand rasengan (you see why I have so little faith in anime movies), and Hiruko’s hand just sucks them up. I thought that the plan at that point was that Hiruko would eat the chakra and explode, buuuut that was not the plan. He still ate the chakra and spat it back out at our heroes.

It should come as no surprise to you that Naruto, in his infinite wisdom of IGNORING WHAT PEOPLE TELL HIM, fires up the Rasen-shuriken, and saves the day. It doesn’t entirely kill Hiruko, and Hiruko gets his ultimate Gary Stu* moment at last, and more or less dies seeing that he did have friends and didn’t need to go apeshit crazy with making himself the awesomest of his creations to ever awesome. And yeah Kakashi talked with him to the end. Hrm.
(*despite being the main baddie and my descriptions, Hiruko didn’t really reek of a Gary Stu until this part, and even then? Not so much. Personally, I found this rather impressive)

So, now that everyone’s beaten their bad guys (Team Konoha whipped the floor with their Chimera, and Tenten was superbly useful, while Ino remained superbly useless, sigh), they all gather to toss Naruto in the air and cheer for him. Kakashi has a moment and we get the ultimate woobie flash back.

Obito telling Kakashi: Those who don’t follow the rules are trash, but those who don’t care about their friends are worse then trash.

Yeah, we get a moral. But you know what? Obito gave us the moral, so you can sit down and enjoy it. In the words of Buffy, do not harsh on my squee.

It’s a really great and misty eyed moment, until Kakashi is all “Thank you Naruto. Ignoring what people tell you is very like you.”

To which Team Konoha, voiced by Tenten, is all “Oh. KakaNaru. Yeah, we ship it.”

I have NO IDEA where this came from, but all Kakashi said was “Oh, how very like you!” and Naruto was all “GEH, WHAT DO YOU MEAN?!” and I swear, it was Tenten who said “I knew it. I knew he liked Naruto.” And then everyone starts chiming in about how Kakashi apparently has the hots for Naruto (Lee and his “Gai-sensei said something like this, seishun blahblah” which makes me wonder about THAT, ew), and then Naruto runs away scared and Kakashi chases after him, MAKING IT WORSE by saying ‘No, I didn’t mean it like that!—AAH, NARUTO! WAIT AAAAAAA”

That’s the end.

The end credits are the teams standing together in photographs, including Kakashi’s old team. Which I really, REALLY want a copy of that picture. But we get snap shots of Team Gai, Team Kurenai, Team Shikamaru, Team Kakashi, and Team Yondaime. And probably some other things that I have forgotten.

Oh, and one other thing: Kishimoto has drawn Hokage Naruto. Seriously. The numbers on his coat are hidden, but he’s wearing his father’s coat and the hat’s obscuring the number. So yeah. We about died there. Naruto as hokage, and drawn by Kishimoto. It was all sorts of hot. (and he wrote saying “thanks for watching!” but some of us were too busy being Narutards and fangirling. Which totally was not me, Oh no, never.)

Okay, so, that was a lot of tl;dr. If you’ve read that. . . dear God, you deserve a medal. However, all I can offer is my thoughts ~~on yaoi~~ on the movie, and pictures of posts that are yet to come. (There’s been some really cool Naruto themed events this August, so yes, there are pictures)

First of all, of the past four movies, the consensus was that this movie was the best. The friends I went with have seen all the movies, and they agreed that this movie has been the best Naruto movie yet. Sure, there were plot holes and confusion at points, but the story was good and the animation was fun and there was a lot of the characters that we liked. You go into a movie with a huge cast and you think “This can’t possibly be any good,” and then you see this movie and change your mind.

For me, the best parts of this movie were the fact that we got to see flashbacks of Kakashi as a kid, both with and without Obito, and just the general Kakashi as the main character. The ending was hilarious and Naruto was amazing. You could see the beginnings of him as hokage there, you could see why people would want him to be hokage. It was really, really cool to see, after having recently rewatched part one.

My complaints were relatively few—I understood Kakashi being ready to die, but obviously, Hiruko was not invincible, why was Tsunade okay with sending Kakashi to die? Okay, we’d have no movie if she hadn’t complied, but still. And the Feudal Lords bossing her around, I’m surprised she didn’t just flip out on them.

I have no complaints about Hiruko. He was an appropriately difficult villain, and not overly retarded. Actually, I’ve liked the villains in the past two movies as well, so perhaps I am a little biased.

Oh, and pictures. Because you deserve them (though you may not thank me for them):

NINJA FOOD!!!