Hmm. I actually enjoyed this week’s filler, as it focused on the concept of summoning and contracting, something which has always interested me about the Naruto world. And this time there aren’t any ship parodies I think (:
Summary
When Gai gets carried away by a giant bird, the Konoha crew stop at a deserted island to look for him. There, they find that the island is teeming with uncontracted shinobi summons, as well as a research lab containing the artificially cross-bred ultimate summon creature.
Impression
Well, the episode started crap as usual, with Naruto playing what looked like the ninja version of Yugioh cards. When Gai got carried off with the most retarded look on his face that screamed “HELP ME I’M A USELESS JOUNIN”, I was fully prepared for another dodgy filler ep of Naruto.
BUT, when Aoba found the records left behind by the scientists on their research on shinobi summons, I started taking a proper interest in it. This week was all about scientists who were obviously Orochimaru fans trying to make an ultimate summon that ended up looking like something out of Alien vs Predator. It went out of control, absorbed them all, and even Shakugan no Shana’s Interpreter of Condolence Honoka, the person in charge of sealing couldn’t suppress the ultimate summon with her Unrestricted Spells.
I actually pitied the creature, it had been genetically mutated to meet human needs for god knows how many times, turned out a bloody mess, then was attacked when the scientists didn’t like the result. The fact it could use ninjutsu and genjutsu didn’t really bug me, since some of Naruto’s toad summons have that capability too.
As with all fillers, there are plot holes in this one. Okay, so the bird was a summon. But doesn’t Sasuke have the hawk summon contract already? Which means that with slight genetic adjustments, technically loads of different ninja could have pretty much the same summon, in, lets say a different colour. Making the whole point of unique summons pointless. Also, I was under the impression that summons usually live in a separate dimension, such as Mt. Myou for the toads, as well as each species having a boss summon. Its completely possible the giant animals living right now on the island are the bosses, though I don’t really see ninja flocking to a remote island in the middle of nowhere trying to capture wild animals.
This was pretty interesting for a filler overall, though I’m sure I’ve seen the “this is what happens when you artifically mess with stuff, bitches” kind of plot before…