I'll start with the least annoying part - the flashbacks. Ok, we all knew they would be using them and that, as always, the Anime team would stretch them out even longer just to fill in some time. What could be worse than longer than needed flashbacks? Answer: Flashbacks that mess with original canon material.
For you see, flashbacks tend to get on the nerves of fans at the best of times, but unfortunately the studio will also decide for some reason to actually take a lot of liberties with said flashbacks, and alter or change some events in a way that either doesn't make sense or else cheapens the original part. Today we are faced with the latter.
Remember how Zabuza was so badly injured after his fight with Kakashi that he had to ask to be brought over to rest by Haku at the end of his life? Well in this one no such thing happened, instead he just walks over and falls down next to Haku of his own accord. Also, it completely missed out having to pull the blades out of himself, plus the part where he killed Gato for disrespecting Haku. It showed Naruto's speech to Zabuza, but then it just showed Zabuza killing a few nameless guys instead.
What else was annoying? The god awful animation and art throughout the episode. Now normally I am not one to complain, but seriously, it looks so bad I can't help but bring it up. Kabuto probably got screwed up the worst, compare him to other episodes and they look nothing alike, it's as if the team in charge of this episode were trying to draw him from memory and a brief description, and as a result he came out of it looking terrible.
Oh, and special mention to the fact that for god knows what reason, they decided to give Haku lipstick in this episode. Yes, you read that right, THEY GAVE HAKU LIPSTICK. We all know the way people got confused about whether Haku was a boy or girl, that was the point at the time, but of course we know he's a boy. Why the people in charge of this episode decided then to make him wear lipstick is just beyond me, not just in the flashbacks, but throughout the episode he is seen wearing it. I haven't facepalmed so many consecutive times during a Naruto episode for a very long time.
The other poor thing about the episode is the soundtrack. Now I like both the original's and Shippuden's soundtrack, and when used right it can really add to the emotion and atmosphere. Unfortunately though the choices here were pretty bad, it was ruined by the wrong song choices at the wrong time, and misusing the awesome theme from the Minato and Kushina episodes was the thing that really stuck with me.
To begin with this review was going to be different as I said, I was going to say how it was nothing special but nothing bad all the same. After really thinking about it though (and for the reasons above), I honestly can't say that anymore, and saying anything other than this being a very poor effort from the Anime team would be a lie. So an episode basically full of flashbacks, poor music choices, and awful animation and art. I guess this is what happens when you send your best teams to go and work on the upcoming movie.
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