I might as well start by saying that Naruto Shippuden 257 is a filler episode, and we will be getting fillers for the next 3 weeks continuing on from this as well. With that in mind, was this another episode to add to the list of infamously bad episodes, or was it better than the usual fare?
Well it certainly wasn’t good, but it wasn’t terrible either. The mini filler arc here thankfully consists of the happenings of Part 1 of the series, which always seem to turn out much better than Shippuden-time filler. It looks like with this filler they are going to go through the whole story from the beginning of Part 1, and probably up until Sasuke’s defection from Konoha.
This episode covered all the events that happened back when Team 7 were still in their early pre-Genin days at the academy, and ended right at the start of the Land of Waves arc. Of course with cramming so much in, it was edited heavily to squeeze everything in and was very much a rush job. I won’t bother describing the events of the episode, as I am pretty sure anyone who is reading this will already know what happened well enough.
The art was pretty poor with this episode which is something I have to point out, I noticed several scenes where the characters looked pretty bad and stupid, and I was watching in full HD so that certainly wasn’t the problem. What I did like was the chance to hear the part 1 soundtrack again which I have always been a huge fan of. It has such a nice sound and charm to it, as well as being very nostalgic which is always a bonus.
Where everything was just being crammed in and rushed it obviously wasn’t that great compared to the original episodes, but I guess for someone who feels like refreshing their memory or for someone who wants the chance to see some events in widescreen and HD, this is going to be a nice little arc for being able to do just that.
One other thing this episode did was reinforce the idea and belief that Konoha is a village of assholes. Of course in this episode we had the chance to see Naruto being treated terribly again by the villagers, and also we get to see Sasuke shortly after the Uchiha massacre who was also left to fend for himself. Naruto is the son of the village hero and former Hokage, and Sasuke was an innocent boy who watched his family die right in front of him at the hands of his own brother, and yet Konoha barely lifted a finger to try and help either of them, which in all honestly does make them come across as heartless scoundrels.
I didn’t like one little filler scene in this episode either, as it made the 3rd Hokage look like a dick. He came in to Naruto’s house and gave him an envelope with a month’s worth of allowance in, and then was immediately about to leave. Naruto tells him to wait a minute, and asks him why he doesn’t have a mother or father. The 3rd then is about to explain about the Kyuubi attack, but Naruto stops him and tells him he already knows that story, but says he wants to know what type of people his mother and father were. All the 3rd does though is say it doesn’t matter as talking about them won’t bring back the dead, and then leaves.
All this did was make the 3rd Hokage come off as extremely cold and selfish, which we know from actual canon isn’t true considering he was always one of the few people who looked out for Naruto. It was really unnecessary and was making Sarutobi seem like someone he wasn’t, which in all truth was very annoying.
Overall I can’t badmouth the episode as it was kind of nice to revisit the old story before we go head on in to the war arc, but I certainly can’t really recommend this either unless you’re feeling nostalgic for the old days of Naruto and want to hear some of the old soundtracks again etc.
Posted by Tokyo Mao 
Tokyo Gazette 