Summary
The Konoha crew get bombed by pirates who live on a battleship island, and they think of a plan to get rid of them.
Impression
As you all probably know, Neverland is a magical world from the famous Peter Pan children’s classic. It’s a land of eternal youth where no-one ever grows old, and it seems Studio Pierrot hasn’t matured much either. After last week, I wasn’t even trying to find ship references, but the plank scene where Captain Hook corners Peter Pan was parodied almost identically, minus that crocodile with the clock.
In a nutshell, all the Konoha crew did was manage to surprise the pirates in a roundabout way which they could have done with genjutsu, land in the middle of them and beat them up. I’m not exactly sure why Naruto didn’t use Rasengan at all, or why he lost to the chief pirate in the first place – he fucking beat Nagato, Kakuzu and is about the same level as Sasuke, yet he can’t even land a hit on a random pirate guy? Worse still, the pirates aren’t even NINJA. Well, I shouldn’t be too surprised, fillers should be full of plot holes anyway.
There was more danger to the crew last week when they fought the giant crab, so I can kinda understand the heroism and urgency, but I didn’t really sympathize with Naruto’s cause one bit at all this week. While it was sad how the island natives had to hide down in the caves for decades to avoid getting killed, and I agree they should have been avenged, there wasn’t really any connection between Naruto and the natives and it seemed more like an excuse to beat up the pirates to me.
It was basically all a bit empty, in comparison to a show like Steins Gate where whole episodes are put towards relationship building at the start, and when the shit happens you really feel for the characters. This is even more effective in a long running series like Naruto (like the stuff with Sasuke) but the lack of that relationship in filler makes it meaningless, and you’re left with a sour face when Naruto goes “I’LL SAVE YOU RANDOM DUDE, DATTEBAYO”
I’m not sure when we’ll reach rock bottom with these fillers, but this episode was one of the more pointless ones for sure.