Naruto Shippuden OVA Sage Naruto vs Sasuke: Entertaining for a 6-min OVA... but nothing new

Written by Little_Wolf-18 on April 14, 2012 at 2:39 PM

Definitely different from what you’d expect from the title. No epic final fight, and frankly, this can’t even count as a full-out spoiler. Apparently it’s an official OVA though, even if made by a different studio than the original series (just look in Wikipedia for any more info).

Anyway; this is a preview of the battle between Naruto and Sasuke; however, it spends more time on flashbacks than on anything else, so I doubt it could really be considered a spoiler.

For a 6-minute mini-film, this OVA manages to get Naruto and Sasuke’s characters across quite well, showing their history and stressing their different styles; Naruto with overflowing hotheaded passion, Sasuke with his cold and calculated strikes. However, most of this is reminiscences of previous fights, meaning: flashbacks. No dialogue so I left it out ^^° The animation isn’t totally consistent; there’s lots of flashbacks which obviously aren’t gonna get better than the general animation of the series, however, the last minute or so which does not rely on flashbacks has amazingly smooth animation, of course different from the original series, but to me seems above its usual animation level (though you might not agree with me on that). The song behind this is excellently fitting and still stuck in my ears.

Naruto fans might want to watch this. If you love good music and/or feel like you’re missing the anime’s point over the fillers (lol), this sure isn’t a wasted 6 minutes either. However, the most frequent reason to get disappointed with this is the deceptive title: No, if you’re looking for an epic final fight, or much stuff that wasn’t in the series before, you are gonna get disappointed, face it. Naruto and Sasuke’s complementary personalities are captured quite well in this, but the most of this OVA is flashbacks with (epic) music.

On a side note, I don’t know where exactly the supposed 14th episode belongs, but definitely not here. This OVA won’t get longer than it is XP