Explorez tous les épisodes du podcast Konoha Crush

Making anime original stories for Naruto means that they can be about anything, such as the suggestion that maybe something might happen eventually even though it hasn't yet.

Covered this week: Naruto episodes 200-202

Favorite director Toshiyuki Tsuru takes the helm for a movie that... we didn't like at all. Uh oh.

Rock Lee needs to recover from his injuries, or maybe he doesn't, or maybe thats not a real thing that anybody needs to worry about, or maybe it is. Unrelatedly, there's a ghost castle.

That silly Rock Lee episode is innocent. The rest of this stuff? Well... Covered this week: Naruto episodes 191-193

It's a disorienting recording session as we struggle to find the balance between recognizing that most of our episodes this week basically mostly work and trying to avoid getting overly astonished at the fact that, at long last, some episodes basically mostly work.

Covered this week: Naruto Episodes 188-190

This week we're blessed with a short recording on account of being cursed by two episodes where nothing of note or interest happens at all. But then there's a third one, a brief shining ray of hope that maybe- just maybe- this show will be good again sometime in the next 30 episodes. Covered this week: Naruto Episodes 185-187

This week our time in the Land of Stars come to a close as the arc hurries to rush us out before its entire narrative collapses, and we return to the Leaf for a one off episode that is just close enough to what we've been asking for to make us complain about it a bunch.

The mission to the Village Hidden in the Stars continues, as we try to puzzle through our feelings on a peculiar mixture of classic anime original problems, the weirdly absent particulars of this arc's setting, and glimpses of a surprising thoughtfulness for this era of the show.

Covered this week: Naruto episodes 179-181

We return from an unplanned illness based hiatus, diving headfirst, with gusto, into some pretty bad episodes of Naruto. Its time to learn just how little a fake teamwork test mission can matter, encounter the ninja world's allegedly very important doll based mail system, and embark on a brand new adventure to the fakest ninja village yet.

The conclusion to an arc we enjoyed gives us just enough cause to reflect on how it fell short that we worry we're a little too mean, but fortunately the next two episodes come along to remind us what REALLY complaining about Naruto is all about.

Covered this week: Naruto episodes 173-175

The mission in the Land of Sea continues, as fleeting glimpses of the actual antagonist of Naruto so far give way to a real fuckin dweeb who stands proudly and shortsightedly in his shadow. Listen as we talk about fish guy armies, try to root through what the show is presenting of Anko's past, and make a surprising but welcome addition to the list of Naruto characters who have totally killed a guy. 

Covered this week: Naruto Episodes 170-172

We're all over the place this time! Our ghost adventure skids to a halt, we head back to the Hidden Leaf for a truly worthless gag episode, and then move on to the introduction of a brand new arc which charms us largely through the virtue of some basic competency. It's been rough out here.

Covered this week: Naruto Episodes 167-169

The goofy ghost mystery arc hits a rocky stretch as we slam head-first into variably avoidable problems. Can enthusiasm for lighthearted genre sendups hold up our engagement in the face of increasingly severe structural issues? Probably not, but at least Naruto character gender engineer Down is here to do her best to make something interesting out of this. Covered this week: Naruto episodes 164-166

Folks. Sometimes there is just no way around it and you have some Scooby-Doo bullshit going on. But is that such a bad thing? After a truly disposable first episode, we head to the Land of Birds for a ghost-based mystery and talk about taking on genre conventions for an arc, speculate in the intersection between everybody having ninja magic and general mystery conventions, and ponder what exactly Neji is capable of seeing.

Covered this week: Naruto Episodes 161-163

We step back from six episode arcs to finish everything we start in the span of a week. Join us as we take on a weird and aimless attempt at standard kids show "everybody learns a lesson by the end of the episode" and a breezy two episode adventure with a much more immediately agreeable message: Shuichi Ikeda is pretty fucking cool, right?

Covered this week: Naruto Episodes 158-160

We are back, and stronger than ever! The same can unfortunately not be said of the show. We do our best to chart the conclusion of the tale of Raiga, Ranmarua, and Karashi which somehow covers three more episodes in spite of basically being over last time, with characterization that inverts from episode to episode, curry that maybe matters a little too much, and our most perfunctory final confrontation yet.

A new arc pits Naruto and an unsupervised Team Guy against a new and dangerous sicko, and gives us cause to think about just how hard it must be to balance anime-original stories that ultimately can't matter but still need to have in the moment emotional stakes. Stories that need to tie brand new characters you'll never see again in with characters we've known for 100+ episodes without just hollowly calling back to character beats and events that the audience is already invested in. Because if it was easy then we'd kinda expect the anime team to be better at it than this.

Covered this week: Naruto episodes 152-154

Hinata's bug quest comes to an end! Can they cash the checks they wrote at the beginning of the arc? Can they wrap things up without undercutting her ability to do anything? Can they justify Naruto's presence in the arc? Listen for the answers to all these questions and more. 

We settle in for the first of a duo of comparatively light episodes as we step forth into a new (shorter than usual) arc. All seems promising as the show takes a strong step towards incorporating its supporting cast in a meaningful way, but a new problem looms on the horizon, threatening to derail things: the main character.

Naruto is back in his second movie, with ambitious ideas like gesturing at parts of the world beyond ninjas, more involved arcs for the movie only cast than last time, and trying to make Shikamaru cool! After 60 minutes of truly bad Naruto last week, we settle in for 40 minutes of pretty breezy and enjoyable theatrical animation. How long are these movies anyway. 40 minutes, right? Just 40 minutes?

Covered this week: Naruto the Movie 2: Legend of the Stone of Gelel

Our landmark 50th episode sees us through to the conclusion of the Mizuki arc! These may be a bad three episodes but with new revelations about Mizuki's past that adamantly refuse to complicate his character, further elaborations on the arcs thematic goals confound and frustrate, and an inability to construct a compelling fight that surpasses our lowest expectations, we have plenty to talk about.

Covered this week: Naruto Episodes 145-147

Putting all that Fuma clan business behind us, we head back to the leave for a brand new adventure much closer to the Hidden Leaf, with a different assortment of guys and the return of an old foe - that one guy from the first episode of Naruto! Has he become a credible threat in the intervening months? Will his new associates bring an interesting texture to the coming action? Hm. Hmmmmm. Hmmmmmmmmm.

Covered this week: Naruto Episodes 142-144

The back half of our first arc in this new era comes with a surprising uptick in production quality, but can the story cohere to match? Don't trouble yourself with that. Instead, join us in celebrating Orochimaru's ability to be the funniest character in Naruto despite not appearing in any of these episodes. Covered this week: Naruto episodes 139-141

After two lonely, Naruto-less months, the Konoha Crush duo returns for a bold new era of anime original Naruto action! Marvel as we pore over the few details we get about the land the Hidden Sound is (ostensibly) located in! Thrill at this week's episodes awkward attempts to tag between comedy and drama! Chill at the ominous and undefined promise of "a Sakura arc"! 

Covered this week: Naruto Episodes 136-138

It all comes to a head in the valley of the end, as Atsushi Wakabayashi’s best episode yet sets the stage for the conclusion of the first part of Naruto. We’ve got everything you need this week: hard hitting commentary like “Norio Matsumoto is a really good animator”, Sasuke appreciation, and some last-minute Shikamaru disrespect before we set our sights on the future.

Covered this week: Naruto Episodes 133-135

Sasuke buckles down to get sad and angry about a few more things and then this time, for real, for sure, the boys are fighting! Meanwhile, we lodge a few more complaints about Sasuke’s dad before he dies on screen again, try to discern how solidified the Itachi roadmap is, and litigate what does and does not count as “understanding your best friend”.

Covered this week: Naruto Episodes 130-132

We bid our farewells to Kimimaro before its time to move on to the main event: the boys are fighting! Or, well, they're building up to it. Join us for boys talking about their feelings, boys distinctly not talking about their feelings, and a surprisingly dense glimpse into whatever was going on with the Uchiha.

Covered this week: Naruto Episodes 127-129

We're back after a week off, and we're bringing the sand siblings with us! Gaara tries to be nice, Temari realizes she doesn't have to be, and Kankuro hangs out in the woods with a guy he's never talked to before in his life.

Covered this week: Naruto Episodes 124-126

The action continues apace this week, and we've got all the details in a nice and breezy episode. Kiba is on the run, Naruto is getting his ass kicked, and Shikamaru makes a convincing argument that he might never have been cool.

Covered this week: Naruto episodes 121-123

The show quickly tires of this ‘one fight at a time’ bullshit and decides to make everything else start happening all at once. In addition to three parallel fights, we see the advent of a new coolest guy, some further glimpses into orochimaru’s operations, and some… investigation into the Inuzuka clan’s jutsu.

Covered this week: Naruto episodes 118-120

In one corner: a teenage prodigy who only just recently learned how to not be a huge tool to everybody. In the other: Orochimaru's rudest gamer. Join us as we talk about fights desperate to find an emotional throughline, have our first brush with belief systems based on a twelve year old kicking your ass one time, and wonder what's up with spiders.

Covered this week: Naruto episodes 115-117

It's Choji's time to shine! His big moment! His only big moment in the entire thing, I'm pretty sure. Will this be a big win for everybody's favorite kind and sweet boy? Or will we be left cold, wishing the show took the character as seriously as we're willing to?

Covered this week: Naruto episodes 113 and 114

Sasuke's gone, and Shikamaru assembles his team to pursue him! It's time for hopping through trees. It's time for some guys we definitely know about to get the shit kicked out of them. It's time for Sasuke dies (real) (not clickbait). Join us as we talk about grabbing some Sakura disrespect for the road, peer pressure, and the inability of any battle plan to hold up in the face of shonen arc structure.

Covered this week: Naruto episodes 110-112

After stacking the poll in favor of shows we might enjoy more, we pivot from Sword Art Online to Ascendance of a Bookworm. Gone are all the gamer trappings, and in their place we find a much more subdued story of a girl aiming to reclaim her ideal life in a new world where she's obstructed by both structures of class and a potentially life threatening, debilitating illness. While watching just one season (adapting 3 of the 29 currently published light novel volumes) means we don't necessarily reach a resolution of that conflict, we have a productive time unraveling the variably compelling fantasies presented by the show and celebrating the fact that we've got actual characters, that we like, this time. What more could you want?

After stacking the poll in favor of shows we might enjoy more, we pivot from Sword Art Online to Ascendance of a Bookworm. Gone are all the gamer trappings, and in their place we find a much more subdued story of a girl aiming to reclaim her ideal life in a new world where she's obstructed by both structures of class and a potentially life threatening, debilitating illness. While watching just one season (adapting 3 of the 29 currently published light novel volumes) means we don't necessarily reach a resolution of that conflict, we have a productive time unraveling the variably compelling fantasies presented by the show and celebrating the fact that we've got actual characters, that we like, this time. What more could you want?

After a brief detour to discuss the Naruto anime’s 20th anniversary, we’re back in the Leaf, where everyone is sad! Dads are reaching their limits, rivalries escalate to a breaking point, and Sakura, having nothing to do but worry for the last 60 episodes, isn’t about to be freed from this curse now. 

Covered this week: Naruto episodes 107-109

Our time in the Land of Tea comes to a close! As Ruby gets entangled in dubious character parallels and underexplored villain motivations while questioning the very stakes of the arc, Gwen makes an impassioned and powerful statement about the potential for even awkward and imperfect art to move the audience.

Covered this week: Naruto episodes 104-106

The Sasuke Retrieval Mission looms on the horizon, but before that its time to spend a couple weeks not talking about anything that happens in the manga. We take on the series most well known gag episode, and then head off to the Land of Tea to meet the torture guy’s secret brother and contemplate the moral weight the show places on child soldier hiring decisions.

Covered this week: Naruto episodes 101-103

It's another week and we're back to the show and back to events that were in the manga! Sort of, anyway. As we return to the Leaf, the show undergoes some adventurous restructuring of the manga to focus on Rock Lee being sad (and some other stuff also). With all the setup for the next big arc kicked down the road a few weeks, the anime has room to build some all new connective tissue. How do we feel about it? Does any part of the story benefit from it? Theres a podcast you can listen to if you're really curious.

Covered this week: Naruto episodes 98-100

Television anime? Thats bullshit! Its time to go to the theater as Naruto and the rest of Team 7 head off to the Land of Snow for an exciting new adventure full of extremely tenuous distinctions between good and bad kings, yelling at a girl until she completes her government ordered Naruto side-character arc, and, crucially, sick ass ninja shit. 

Covered this week: Naruto the Movie: Ninja Clash in the Land of Snow

We are granted a reprieve from our suffering as the action comes to a close and we return to a more normal level of 'totally fine'. After being (partially) freed from our burden of complaining, we talk about big animal battle strategies and punching guys really hard, as well as come to some conclusions about Shizune and the importance of making your own fun.

Covered this week: Naruto episodes 95-97

Maybe fight scenes aren't good. Maybe Naruto isn't good. Maybe nothing is good. Did you ever think about that.

Covered this week: Naruto episodes 92-94

After weeks of being talked about and a few short scenes of her own, its finally time for Tsunade to take center stage! What drives her? What events made her into the person she is today? How will she respond when pushed into a corner by a difficult choice? I sure fuckin wish we had more interesting answers to any of these questions.

Covered this week: Naruto episodes 89-91

By taking on a lighter, 2 episode load this week, we're able to bring you what is basically a normal length episode of the podcast. Join us for a wide ranging discussion mostly about these episodes as we talk about ninja education (again), Tsunade's reputation, and exploiting dad-based weaknesses.

Covered this week: Naruto episodes 87 and 88

The stakes start off high this week in a hallway where Sasuke is about to have the second worst day of his life and Jiraiya is about to use his first worst jutsu, before we unwind in our much lighter third episode. Even when nobody else is having fun, we have plenty to talk about as we try to figure out what we're supposed to make of Itachi, welcome back a significant director after a 40 episode absence, and contemplate comedy mean guy behavior.

Covered this week: Naruto episodes 84-86

The aftermath of a big fight reveals that there are two kinds of people in this world: guys who can be normal about it and guys who can't be normal about it at all. We check in on the main boys of the show to learn which they are, but ultimately we're just glad everybody can get a bit of downtime to- ah fuck. We've just received word that a cooler and more badass evil guy than anybody has ever seen before has entered the village.

Covered this week: Naruto episodes 81-83

61 episodes of Naruto later, we're out on the other side of the longest arc we'll see for quite some time. A conclusion of this scale means that the show is swinging as hard as it can to get us to feel as much as it can about everything that happens in these episodes. Success is another matter entirely. Join us as we put a bow on this one and talk about sentimentality laden lectures, sad anime boys talking to each other, and mourn the passing of a dear friend: the soul of Orochimaru's arms.

Covered this week: Naruto episodes 78-80

25 episodes! We ring in this meager milestone by talking about Gaara, and then talking about Gaara, and then talking about Gaara some more. Its a real banner week for that sad, sad boy who loves to murder. 

Covered this week: Naruto episodes 75-77

The battle in the hidden leaf rages on! The Third Hokage makes his move to defeat Orochimaru, Sasuke gets ever closer to his confrontation with Gaara, and Shino catches up to the action in the forest! We're not really doing a blow for blow action recaps kinda show though, so instead we talk about what it means to be the nice guy with child soldiers and take it upon ourselves to stand in as Chunin Exam proctors and rules committee members while the guys who actually have those jobs are indisposed.

Covered this week: Naruto episodes 72-74

It's a big week here on Konoha Crush: after an uncommonly long first segment, we shake off the distractions and continue our assault on the Hidden Leaf! Or at least continue commentating over it. We've got discussions about fighting your dad, getting rescued by your dad, and Atsushi Wakabayashi's continued efforts in redefining what action in Naruto looks like! (This last point's not really about dads. Sorry if you were expecting it to be.)

Covered this week: Naruto episodes 69-71

The audience may be sated by the long awaited arrival of Sasuke’s fight with Gaara, and we'll kill time with our own commentary, but we’re still waiting for the start of the real show: the destruction of the Village Hidden in the Leaves! This is going to go really well for us, I think. That Orochimaru guy seems really strong.

Covered this week: Naruto episodes 66-68