Alright, I'm a little late at jumping into the topic, but I finally saw the episode.
I guess I had mixed opinions on it. The animation was poor, and I definitely groaned after seeing the exact same scenes of Guy destroying rocks, Yamato slinging the ship around a rock, and Naruto using Rasengan on the whirlpool three times. I mean, I understand they want to save money, but come on, these fillers are starting to feel like old Hanna-Barbara cartoons.
It's cool seeing Shikamaru show off his genius, but all he really did was figure out that they were stuck in a trap the whole episode. I was looking forward to seeing Ten-ten too, but she didn't really do too much either. She just summoned the boat at the end and crushed all the pirates. On that note, how many pirates are on this ocean? Seriously, I feel like the anime team is just making plotlines up as they go. I really hope the rumor about Akira Higashiyama joining the anime team was just a rumor, because this is probably one of my least favorite Part II filler arcs. The next episode might be interesting though, but I'm not getting my hopes up. As long as it's about Hinata trying to improve herself, and not the anime team pushing N/H down our throats again, I probably won't complain too much.
As for OP that everyone here's gushing over, I didn't really care for it. The Naru/Saku almost-hug scene was cute, but the tone was way too silly, and it didn't really make much sense considering what's about to happen in the next few arcs. If they started playing this OP at the beginning of the current filler arc, I wouldn't mind, but I don't want to be seeing this ridiculousness before some of the epicness in next arc. But then again, the next arc doesn't really get serious till about half-way through, so maybe they're planning on a new OP by then. *shrug*
I did like the ED though. It was a good song, and it was a lot more epic than the average Naruto ED is. I guess there was a little Naru/Saku in it, but I took it as more of the same thing as Naruto's mental image in 505. Not necessarily a pairing moment, but definitely showing us the difference between Sakura and Hinata's importance in Naruto's mind.
Well as much as I hate to say it, I think this opening is also going to be used with the "Confining the Jinchuuriki" arc. Either that or were looking at least another 22 to 24 filler episodes, because that is about the average usage of an opening. This also means at least one more ending, because the average usage of endings are around 12 episodes.
Yeah, that's what it seems like. I'm actually more looking forward to the OP changing than the ED, but it seems like they usually keep the OP for twice as long. I guess, if the current filler arc goes for another 10 or so episodes, then maybe they'll change it half-way through the Jinchuriki Confinement Arc. As I recall, the tone of the next arc was a little more light-hearted than some of the previous ones, at least before he fights the Kyuubi. If they drag out some of the episodes, the OP might change already by the time Naruto meets his mom and we see her flashback to the night of Kyuubi attack.
Bleach has the most EPIC and POWERFUL openings. Pierrot should follow them.
The Bleach anime does have some of the best openings, but they've also had awkwardly silly OP's during serious canon material too. I recall at the beginning of the Karakura Arrancar fight, when the anime used that ridiculous opening with Rukia, Orihime, and Rangiku doing a sexy dance interspersed with pictures of some of the seated Shinigami characters. Admittedly, the Karakura fight was only beginning when the anime used that OP, but it was still a little random for how serious the fight was getting.
Edited by Boom...Winning, 09 October 2011 - 07:59 PM.