NARUTO – THE FOREST OF DEATH (ANIME VOLUME 7).
August 24th 2008 22:49
Category: Videos, Television
Based on the Naruto manga by: Masashi Kishimoto.
Director: Hayato Date.
Producers: Tomoko Gushima (TV Tokyo) & Ken Hagino.
Starring: David Wittenberg (Kakashi Hatake), Maile Flannigan (Naruto), Kate Higgins (Sakura), Yuri Lowenthal (Sasuke), Mary Elizabeth McGlynn (Kurenai Yuhi).
Produced by: TV Tokyo & Studio Pierrot.
Released by: Madman Entertainment.
Running Time: 125 minutes. Rating: M.
In the Hidden Leaf village as well as the various other ninja villages of the Naruto anime series the various grades of shinobi are as follows; academy students (ninjas in training), genin (the lowest ranked ninja), chunin (squad leaders), jonin (the elite) and last of all Kage, this class being the leader of a hidden village. Not every hidden village has a Kage leader in fact there are actually only five villages that do have a Kage (Shadow) leader and these are the five most influential of the hidden ninja villages. Of course travelling up the rungs of the rank ladder isn’t a simple matter; candidates who want to become chunin have to pass a gruelling examination one that is held twice a year in the Hidden Leaf village and is open to candidates to all the various hidden villages allied with the Leaf village.
The Chunin Selection Exam is not for the faint hearted, candidates have been known to die, end up gibbering wrecks or else been so badly mauled and injured that they were unable to continue as active shinobi. So taking this exam is a decision that requires some degree of thoughtful consideration, naturally Naruto isn’t the kind of guy known to be a master of the thoughtful considering process as soon as he heres about this exam he realise that this could be a step forward to fulfilling his ultimate dream, becoming Hokage of the Hidden Leaf Village. He gets through this and he reckons he’s a cert to take over from the current Hokage; Sarutobi. Would that life was that easy, still be luck and sheer determination coupled with unflinching resolve our erstwhile hero manages to make his way through the first part of the exam, a gruelling written test conducted under the watchful eyes of Ibiki Morino, head of the Leaf Village’s ANBU interrogation unit.
Now he and his fellow squad mates in Team 7, the lovely ninja maiden Sakura and the number one rookie of this years academy graduates, Sasuke Uchiha, move onto the second stage of the Chunin Selection exam. This particular event has a more than fifty per cent failure rate and is the one where the weaklings literally are weeded out from the strong in an often fatal manner. The examiner for this stage of the exam is one Anko Mitarashi, a woman who in Sakura’s mind is as much a screaming nut case as her team mate Naruto. In other words she is a full on full speed ahead character who is just looking forward to seeing candidates fail. Anko seems to take a decidedly bloodthirsty delight in the prospect of the 78 candidates going through her particular stage of the exam and the vast bulk of them ending up as wrecks, statistics or worse. Before the second stage takes place she gets everyone to sign a disclaimer so that if they do suffer some misfortune she won’t be held responsible. Real nice.
Where the first stage consisted of a written test where candidates had to cheat without getting caught the second stage is an all out battle between teams over two scrolls, a heaven and an earth scroll. The venue for this no holds barred struggle is the 44th training area, a fenced off enclave of forest complete with tigers, snakes, giant centipedes and other menaces. At the centre of the forest is a tower which lies exactly ten kilometres from each of the forty four gates that open onto the training field. Each team is given one scroll, in order to successfully complete the second stage they must gain the other scroll and then with both scrolls make their way to the tower. They have five days in which to complete this task. Did I mention the man eating tigers, the giant centipedes, snakes et al? So if you start out with a heaven scroll you’d have to get your hands on an earth scroll and vice versa, and to top it all off if fighting your fellow candidates, along with braving the various elements within the battle zone wasn’t enough the teams are forbidden from opening the scrolls on pain of something bad happening. Specifics are not forthcoming; all that Anko says is that you don’t want it to happen.
Preliminaries out of the way the various teams all move off to gather and the various gates from which they’ll simultaneously enter the battlefield. As the clock ticks around to two thirty pm the gates are flung open and the second stage commences, Naruto and his team mates march into the training ground quietly confident that they can handle whatever dangers are going to come their way. If they only knew…Two of the teams out the other twenty five teams are fanatically intent on Team 7, one is comprised of three ninja from the Hidden Grass Village whilst the other consists of three Hidden Sound village shinobi. This is where things begin to take a turn for the worse as there are others who have been watching this year’s Chunin Selection Exam and planning to use it to further their own particular ambitions, the main player in this regard is the villainous renegade ninja Orochimaru.
Once on of the Leaf villages three legendary shinobi Orochimaru left his home village under a cloud and elected to pursue his own agenda in the wider world. Now after many years absence from the village he has returned at the time of the Chunin Selection Exam, even competing within the exam as one of the ninja from the Hidden Grass village who target Team 7 in the second stage. It also seems that he is the leader of the Sound Ninja squad as well who are acting under his orders to target Team 7. Wheels within wheels, what could a legendary shinobi of Orochimaru’s status want with a team of rookie genin? There definitely is something that he wants from the pupils of Kakashi Hatake and he takes considerable efforts and risk to ensure that his chances of gaining it are secure. So confident is he in his belief that he even reveals some of his machinations to his former pupil Anko who attempts to put an end to his schemes and evil ways.
There is definitely no teddy bear’s picnic going on in this forest, not by a long shot. Essentially the driving focus of this volume isn’t just the growth of Naruto and his comrades as characters within the story but to introduce one of the series major antagonists and being laying the foundations for the future chapters that is yet to unfold. In the manga on which this anime series is based Masashi Kishimoto has employed a similar mirroring of elements that George Lucas has used in the various Star Wars movies. This is nothing new in either the field of manga or anime but here it is integral to the overall story as well as that within these particular episodes. The events that occur in the Forest of Death will have a bearing on future episodes of the Naruto anime.
Granted at the time I initially watched this particular DVD I had no real idea what was going on in that regard, it took reading several manga volumes as well as eventually watching the rest of the series as well as surfing the web that I finally began to cotton on to this aspect. Just like the schemes and manipulations of Orochimaru the plot of Naruto is a multifaceted thing and no doubt for me and countless others it is part of the appeal. As far as I am aware the series is still continuing in Japan on TV Tokyo and the manga in its English translation is up to volume 30 and no doubt many more to come. Still when all is said and done this show is fun watching, after all one of the reasons why I enjoy watching anime is enjoyment and Naruto delivers it in spades…BELIEVE IT!
Director: Hayato Date.
Producers: Tomoko Gushima (TV Tokyo) & Ken Hagino.
Starring: David Wittenberg (Kakashi Hatake), Maile Flannigan (Naruto), Kate Higgins (Sakura), Yuri Lowenthal (Sasuke), Mary Elizabeth McGlynn (Kurenai Yuhi).
Produced by: TV Tokyo & Studio Pierrot.
Released by: Madman Entertainment.
Running Time: 125 minutes. Rating: M.
In the Hidden Leaf village as well as the various other ninja villages of the Naruto anime series the various grades of shinobi are as follows; academy students (ninjas in training), genin (the lowest ranked ninja), chunin (squad leaders), jonin (the elite) and last of all Kage, this class being the leader of a hidden village. Not every hidden village has a Kage leader in fact there are actually only five villages that do have a Kage (Shadow) leader and these are the five most influential of the hidden ninja villages. Of course travelling up the rungs of the rank ladder isn’t a simple matter; candidates who want to become chunin have to pass a gruelling examination one that is held twice a year in the Hidden Leaf village and is open to candidates to all the various hidden villages allied with the Leaf village.
Where the first stage consisted of a written test where candidates had to cheat without getting caught the second stage is an all out battle between teams over two scrolls, a heaven and an earth scroll. The venue for this no holds barred struggle is the 44th training area, a fenced off enclave of forest complete with tigers, snakes, giant centipedes and other menaces. At the centre of the forest is a tower which lies exactly ten kilometres from each of the forty four gates that open onto the training field. Each team is given one scroll, in order to successfully complete the second stage they must gain the other scroll and then with both scrolls make their way to the tower. They have five days in which to complete this task. Did I mention the man eating tigers, the giant centipedes, snakes et al? So if you start out with a heaven scroll you’d have to get your hands on an earth scroll and vice versa, and to top it all off if fighting your fellow candidates, along with braving the various elements within the battle zone wasn’t enough the teams are forbidden from opening the scrolls on pain of something bad happening. Specifics are not forthcoming; all that Anko says is that you don’t want it to happen.
Preliminaries out of the way the various teams all move off to gather and the various gates from which they’ll simultaneously enter the battlefield. As the clock ticks around to two thirty pm the gates are flung open and the second stage commences, Naruto and his team mates march into the training ground quietly confident that they can handle whatever dangers are going to come their way. If they only knew…Two of the teams out the other twenty five teams are fanatically intent on Team 7, one is comprised of three ninja from the Hidden Grass Village whilst the other consists of three Hidden Sound village shinobi. This is where things begin to take a turn for the worse as there are others who have been watching this year’s Chunin Selection Exam and planning to use it to further their own particular ambitions, the main player in this regard is the villainous renegade ninja Orochimaru.
Once on of the Leaf villages three legendary shinobi Orochimaru left his home village under a cloud and elected to pursue his own agenda in the wider world. Now after many years absence from the village he has returned at the time of the Chunin Selection Exam, even competing within the exam as one of the ninja from the Hidden Grass village who target Team 7 in the second stage. It also seems that he is the leader of the Sound Ninja squad as well who are acting under his orders to target Team 7. Wheels within wheels, what could a legendary shinobi of Orochimaru’s status want with a team of rookie genin? There definitely is something that he wants from the pupils of Kakashi Hatake and he takes considerable efforts and risk to ensure that his chances of gaining it are secure. So confident is he in his belief that he even reveals some of his machinations to his former pupil Anko who attempts to put an end to his schemes and evil ways.
There is definitely no teddy bear’s picnic going on in this forest, not by a long shot. Essentially the driving focus of this volume isn’t just the growth of Naruto and his comrades as characters within the story but to introduce one of the series major antagonists and being laying the foundations for the future chapters that is yet to unfold. In the manga on which this anime series is based Masashi Kishimoto has employed a similar mirroring of elements that George Lucas has used in the various Star Wars movies. This is nothing new in either the field of manga or anime but here it is integral to the overall story as well as that within these particular episodes. The events that occur in the Forest of Death will have a bearing on future episodes of the Naruto anime.
Granted at the time I initially watched this particular DVD I had no real idea what was going on in that regard, it took reading several manga volumes as well as eventually watching the rest of the series as well as surfing the web that I finally began to cotton on to this aspect. Just like the schemes and manipulations of Orochimaru the plot of Naruto is a multifaceted thing and no doubt for me and countless others it is part of the appeal. As far as I am aware the series is still continuing in Japan on TV Tokyo and the manga in its English translation is up to volume 30 and no doubt many more to come. Still when all is said and done this show is fun watching, after all one of the reasons why I enjoy watching anime is enjoyment and Naruto delivers it in spades…BELIEVE IT!
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