Naruto: The Last Movie - A Disappointing Finale
A concluding anime feature in the Naruto saga that fails to impress as either a magical action film or a romantic drama.
After countless adventures and heroic deeds, the young ninja Naruto has risen to fame and respect. People from all corners of the world flock to his village to pay him homage. This both pleases and frustrates his longtime friend, Hinata. She’s happy that her beloved has achieved so much of what he dreamed of, but she fears that Naruto, who has always seen her as just a comrade, will now never look at her romantically, surrounded as he is by attractive girls.
While Hinata gathers the courage to finally confess her feelings, a lunar ninja named Toneri attacks Earth. He plans to use an ancient magical weapon to destroy the world, which he sees as mired in ninja conflict. Of all people, Toneri wants to spare only Hinata, his very distant relative.
Although ninjas are warriors from Japan’s past, the “Naruto” storyline unfolds in an alternate world that bears no resemblance to our reality or earthly history.
The End of an Era
After 15 years of comics, over 600 television episodes, and ten feature-length anime films, the Naruto saga, one of the most popular in Japanese history, has come to an end. However, it’s not quite time to retire its characters. An anime film about Naruto’s son is slated for release in Japan this year, and who knows how long his saga will last… But “Naruto” as it is known and loved around the world will no longer exist (naturally, after the “catch-up” broadcast of the television series that follows the comic book plot is completed), and for fans of action anime, the concluding cycle “Naruto: The Last Movie” is the end of an entire era in the history of the genre.
One would think that this era should have ended in cinema with an epic battle against one of Naruto’s old adversaries or some other impressive feat and the hero’s transition to a new level of mastery. But instead, “The Last Movie” is a love story. More precisely, a story of confession of love between Naruto and Hinata.
The name Toneri is likely a reference to the Japanese Prince Toneri, who lived in the 8th century AD and was the official editor of the “Nihon Shoki,” one of the first Japanese historical chronicles.
A Weak Villain and a Lack of Stakes
Yes, the heroes in the film have a powerful enemy, and he is trying to orchestrate a global cataclysm. But, firstly, Toneri is a very generic villain with flimsy motivation and minimal charisma, and it’s hard to take him seriously, even when he demonstrates impressive magical skill. And although Naruto has to try to defeat Toneri, the hero doesn’t jump above his head but only uses combat techniques that he has long known.
Secondly, nothing threatens the Earth in the film because the ninja leaders have a magical super-weapon capable of throwing the Moon into a parallel dimension if Toneri tries to collide it with the Earth. In essence, Naruto and company are saving not the Earth but the almost deserted Moon, which is not as dramatic as, for example, the plot of “Armageddon,” which “The Last Movie” is clearly inspired by.
Thirdly, the actual confrontation between the hero and the villain takes only about half an hour in the almost two-hour film, and the fate of the red scarf that Hinata knits as a gift for Naruto as a veiled declaration of love is discussed in the film much more often than the fate of the planet. Like, “We will definitely save the Earth, but we will have to fight for the scarf that Toneri tore!”. So, as sometimes happens in anime of this genre, the villain appears in the plot not to threaten the world but to remind the slow-witted Naruto that if he does not realize his feelings for Hinata, then there will be other contenders for her hand.
An Unconvincing Romance
Another question is whether these feelings exist and how strong they are. “The Last Movie” spends a lot of time showing how long and sincerely Hinata has loved Naruto, but it has almost nothing to say about Naruto’s feelings for Hinata. Like Othello in Shakespeare’s play (“She loved me for the dangers I had passed, and I loved her that she did pity them”), Naruto in the film responds to Hinata’s love, rather than falling in love with her on his own initiative. Moreover, the film recalls the guy’s past love for another girl, Sakura, and these feelings seem more justified because Sakura is a brighter and more spectacular heroine, and her combative character has more of what Naruto values in people than Hinata’s passive character.
In this regard, the romance between Naruto and Hinata can be compared to the romance between Harry Potter and Ginny Weasley. Genre laws, plot logic, the psychological kinship of Harry and Hermione (two magicians who grew up in “ordinary” families) - everything required Joanne Rowling to marry the two main characters of the cycle. But the writer, for personal reasons unrelated to literature, imposed another passion on Harry… And later admitted that she was wrong. It seems that the author of the Naruto comics, artist Masashi Kishimoto, also made a mistake, who preferred ideology to plot logic (Hinata is much closer to the traditional ideal of a Japanese wife than Sakura). But if in the films about Potter, love passions are only a small fraction of the screen events, then “The Last Movie” is built around the relationship between Naruto and Hinata, and their implausibility becomes a big minus for the film. A very big minus.
This, however, is a matter of taste. The film is intended exclusively for longtime fans of “Naruto,” and among them, there are both supporters of the marriage of Naruto and Sakura and supporters of the marriage of Naruto and Hinata. The latter, however, will still not be in seventh heaven, since the film treats Hinata as a simple “damsel in distress,” and not as a worthy warrior in her own right, which she is, despite all the stereotypical femininity. Just think - Toneri kidnaps her three times, and Naruto saves her three times! Yes, there are scenes in the film in which Hinata demonstrates her skill, and fragments in which Naruto and Hinata join forces to defeat the enemy together. But there should be much more of such scenes and fragments in such a film because in the 21st century, the relationship of loving heroes should at least resemble equal and partnership. Especially in a cycle that is dedicated to magical battles and where all the main characters are gifted ninjas.
Final Thoughts
What else is in “The Last Movie,” besides the romantic confessions of Naruto and Hinata and the culminating battle with Toneri, during which the characters try to smear each other on the lunar rocks? Good animation, a drawn-out action (especially in the middle of the film), repeated repetition of what has long been obvious… And cameos of many characters in the cycle, although only some of them have lines, and only a few take an active part in the plot at all.
Overall, the film is disappointing, and not only to us. In Japan, after the release of “The Last Movie,” a whole war broke out on thematic sites between those who felt that the cycle could have been ended much more excitingly and that the romance of the heroes could have been depicted much more convincingly, and those who believe that “Naruto” is above criticism and that any film about ninjas is a heavenly gift to insignificant mortals. We, as you can see, are on the side of the former - those who have not yet begun to worship Kishimoto as God the Creator.