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...

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.

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