Konoha Crush

One fight between kids is clearly not enough for this crowd, as the audience’s building excitement for Sasuke’s fight against Gaara is our biggest throughline this week. That doesn’t mean there’s not a lot else to dig into here though, come along as the show tries to put a neat little bow on the whole Neji situation, attempts to convince us that Shikamaru is cool, and prepares to wow us with the long awaited return of everybody’s favorite special boy, Sasuke Uchiha himself.

Covered this week: Naruto episodes 63-65

Our excursion into the wide world(s) of isekai (and isekai adjacent anime) begins now, and what better way to start than tackling one of the most prominent and successful shows of our age: the first season of Sword Art Online! It’s… well let’s not mince words. It’s not a very good show. But when taken as material for discussion and a baseline to begin to approach our feelings about the genre? I’d like to think it makes for a pretty good podcast.

It's time for the first match of the finals, as Naruto squares off against Neji! The atmosphere in the stadium is electric, and everybody's here to see two kids beat the shit out of each other. We're here to break down the action, talk about Hyuga clan baggage, and witness the continued development of Naruto's signature technique (not the rasengan), and you're seated close enough to us in the stadium that you're gonna overhear the whole thing.

Covered this week: Naruto episodes 60-62

Its our last week before the finals of the chunin exams, which means we've got a bunch of little things to wrap up and questions to answer before the action kicks off. Were we right last week when we preemptively declared that Gamabunta kicks ass? How long can this show keep convincing us it has a romance in it? And just how much can one scary little boy love to do murders? The answers to all these questions and more are contained in this very episode.

Covered this week: Naruto episodes 57-59

This week is all about Naruto learning to summon toads- in theory anyway. In practice, it turns out that would be pretty boring to watch the whole time so we instead take the opportunity to check in on everybody else. Come along as we just sort of skulk around the Hidden Leaf while we develop Jiraiya management techniques, check if Sakura is up to anything, and discover the secret tragedy of the Third Hokage.

Covered this week: Naruto episodes 54-56

After sweeping the remaining match of the preliminaries off the table in record speed, the show jumps at the chance to slow down a little. Join us as Orochimaru makes some bold commitments to being a sicko, and we see the extra space afforded by adapting one chapter per episode put to use to try and reform Ebisu's image just a little... before ramping up the challenge level on having a good time with Jiraiya's introduction. It all balances out, I guess.

Covered this week: Naruto episodes 51-53

This week, Rock Lee drops the weights, and we, your hosts, do our damnedest to keep up! It's basically everything we could ask for in a podcast as we break down a visually striking and iconic episode of the show, consider the place of this often isolated highlight within the work as a whole, and most importantly, talk about some of our favorite guys and say that they're really cool a lot of times.

Covered this week: Naruto episodes 48-50

There's still an entire episode of Naruto vs Kiba for us to withstand but theres a light at the end of the tunnel: a fight with any dramatic weight at all! With our first episode of the week out of the way, we strap in for a talk about shithead teens who think they know everything, developing lifelong attachments to sad anime girls when you're 13 years old, and cheering with all your heart for the loser.

Covered this week: Naruto episodes 45-47

We wrap up the Ino and Sakura fight and in its aftermath are forced to confront a terrible truth: if you get 20 guys in a room and match them off haphazardly then a some of those fights are going to be kind of bullshit, even if Naruto is one of the guys in them. But we power through. We're brave like that.

Covered this week: Naruto episodes 42-44

We dive head first into the tournament zone as the preliminaries kick off! Sasuke Uchiha vs Yoroi Akado! Shino Aburame vs Zaku Abumi! Kankuro vs uh... some guy! But thats not all! We also get to watch the show write checks about two girls vowing to fight each other all out that we'll just have to wait and see if it can cash. Come along for chats about tournament booking, declarations that Orochimaru kinda rocks, and our shared, doomed desire to point at something and go "that seems gay".

Covered this week: Naruto episodes 39-41