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'The Last: Naruto the Movie' is confusing fun
The gang's all hereIn the opening seconds of The Last: Naruto the Movie, a manâs voice booms through the black to ask: âWas it power or love that brought about the world?âThis wonât mean much to the unconverted, but for 200 million fans, the obscure principle of âpower or loveâ undergirds a fictional universe theyâre loath to leave
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The gang's all here
In the opening seconds of The Last: Naruto the Movie, a man's voice booms through the black to ask: 'Was it power or love that brought about the world?'
This won't mean much to the unconverted, but for 200 million fans, the obscure principle of 'power or love' undergirds a fictional universe they're loath to leave.
The tenth film about the boy-ninja Naruto and his friends begins another series ' 'New Era Project' ' picking up between the last two chapters of the original comics.
'Last', however, is a misnomer, with a sequel already planned.
But this is the logic of the 'power or love' that features everywhere throughout the film. I was uninitiated into the world of Naruto at the time of screening and yet I could enjoy the film on its own terms ' that nothing made sense was finally Naruto's endearing feature.
An initial montage of images explains, sort of, the back story of a fruit tree and a laughing woman.
The woman eats the fruit and becomes a huge ten-tailed monster that her two sons, super-powered ninjas, defeat, thus creating nine smaller monsters, one of which is 'sealed' within Naruto, our hero, marking him for greatness.
The comics span a 15-year catalogue, and The Last begins near the end, with an 18-year-old Naruto returning home from war, buoyant and neglecting his past, and his ghost, Hinata, who's loved him since they were both children.
Hinata is a major character, first indicated by her abject minor-ness. She is wan, shy, and short and spends her time knitting a red scarf for Naruto.
This is the central plot thread ' Hinata's ongoing effort to finish and hand-off her love token.
The process is interrupted, first by Hinata's own trepidations, then by Toneri Tsutsuki. The latter is a 'Ninja of the Moon,' i.e., a lunar alien, i.e., the sole remaining progeny of the laughing ten-tailed monster-woman's son, Hamura. Toneri wants to marry Hinata.
Why?
Because Hinata has clairvoyant white eyes, of course; and because she's descended from the Hyuga clan, obviously; and because Toneri, by stealing her clairvoyant white eyes, can obtain a powerful weapon to destroy the Earth.
Toneri is in ecological torment ' he hates to see the world so misused by humans; and his weapon of choice is the moon. With the power of Hinata's eyes, Toneri means to tear down the Moon.
But when Hinata refuses Toneri's marriage proposal, he steals her white-irised sister instead, and Naruto and Hinata set off to find her before it all falls down.
The Last is constantly playing catch-up with itself. The plot is a combination of too-late and in-the-knick-of-time action; so when Naruto finds Hinata in the grip of Toneri, it's not before realizing how much he likes her, but it is after the point of his being able to do anything about it.
This give-take-too-late mechanic is essential to understanding the plotted paroxysms of Naruto. Japanese action anime often seems built backwards, from the ultimate encounter with an uber-boss, down to the ground and dirt of our hero's inglorious beginnings; there's never any question of who will win, but in Naruto a profuse pleasure in watching the creators' ingenuity, the ways they contrive to successively outdo their own imaginations.
To give an example: in the final half-hour, Toneri, Naruto, a rock golem and fox demon all square off; there's still the love affair and scarf to be sorted out, and the decade-long backstory; and now try weaving this together, as the creators did. Can you guess the end? Could you invent one?
Naruto tells Hinata in the final minutes, 'Hurry up, the dimension's closing.' All of the Naruto films ' in which the world is saved again and again ' are invariably apocalyptic, ultimate, for fans ' including this one ' eager not to leave the theater.
But for the first time, perhaps, despite Naruto's efforts to save the world, he can't save the world; we're at dimensional collapse, curtain-close, The Last ' of something. The story ends here, for now.
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The writer is an intern at The Jakarta Post.
- Photos courtesy of Studio Pierrot
