Ok, I made plans in my schedule, to watch the premiere of Naruto on Toonami. Here is my review.
Pros: Well first of all, it's the same Naruto we all know and love from the Fan-subs. Nothing more or less the same story. Toonami showed the first two episodes in conjunction with One Piece's style of an hour of its own show. I was amazed to see that most of the show was left intact. Naruto's Sexy no Jutsu was left with the clouds and no bathing suits were added. Also the person who speaks for Naruto (The guy who did the little boy's voice from that Time Patrol or whatever cartoon its called on CN) managed to keep Naruto's voice intact during both episodes.
Cons: Now this is where my gripes really begin. First of all, minimal blood. Oh yes, they show blood in the anime but drops of it fling from the mouths of the characters? Of course not. I was even driven to the point of tearing up, when they didn't show blood flying from the Third's nose when Naruto performed the Sexy no Jutsu on him. So what does this mean? No copious amounts of blood for you my friend.
Onto the voices. While Naruto's, The Third's, Konahamaru, and Ebisu's voices were alright, Hyuuga Hinata and Iruka's voices irked the hell out of me. Hinata's voice sounded a little to high and whiny for my taste while Iruka's voice is just plain annoying. Why? I'll give you an example:
Iruka: "MEE-ZOO-KIII!!!" (Translation: "Mizuki!"
I kid you not. Most of the Ninja in the show stress out the Japanese pronounciations in names so much as in the words, Hokage, Mizuki, and others, that it detracted from the overall experience. Also about the words. I cringed (literally) when Iruka slaughtered the saying of "Genin." This was how he said it:
Iruka: "I've tried to get him to understand the hard path to becoming a ninja, but he's been beaming ever since he became a GUH-NEEN."
GUH-NEEN? Last time I checked, it was GAY-NEEN. I guess my teachers from Japan have been teaching us the wrong pronounciation for Hiragana or something. However I applauded when Ebisu called himself a JO-NEEN, which is the right way to say it. But the worst thing is when they pronounced Konohamaru's name like this: KO-NO-HAM-URU. The Maru part is seperate from the first part of the name so why did they say it all together in a jumble of American English? The world may never know.
My last gripes concern about the Jutsu names and Opening Themes. They say stuff like Clone Jutsu or Multi-Clone Jutsu. So no Baykugan or Sharingan for you. Also they took out my Wind ending theme.
Overall: So to conclude this, I felt that it was a good attempt that could have been made better with a little more polish. With the edits made in the show, my excitement has dulled a little, but from what I saw tonight, I can tell Naruto will be left intact for the most part. Just don't ask me about the Hand-Stabbing, or Haku spewing a waterfall of blood. It's not gonna happen.
