PAN-CHAN'S REVIEWS

NARUTO
DUB EPISODE 4 -- "Pass or Fail: Survival Test"

The following is my review for the fourth English dubbed episode of Naruto.

• This episode contains one of my favorite scenes from the series -- when they introduce themselves to Kakashi at the beginning. It's great because you get to learn so much about their personalities in what they say -- Naruto rambles about ramen, Sakura about Sasuke, Sasuke about his angst and Kakashi says nothing at all. It's awesome. X3

• Kakashi's voice is OK, but it doesn't suit him. Kakashi sounds bored and mildly amused at the same time. The English voice seems to be missing the "mildly amused" part, and so he sounds rather bland. Also, I can't tell when he's thinking or actually speaking, but that's more something at the sound editor's end of things.

• During their survival training, Kakashi uses the word "destroy" instead of "kill". He says Naruto came at him with the intention to "destroy" him. This is made weirder since the scene has a flashback to Mizuki in the first episode when Naruto threatens to kill him. It seems that "kill" is too harsh a word to use among characters that are generally friendly towards each other. Hmm.

• The pronunciation of "jounin", "genin", etc. has been bugging me. I'm interested in knowing if they spell it the same way in the English version.

• "Thousand Years of Pain" is now "Thousand Years of Death". Maybe because of the action?

• This episode had the only dubbing jobs I can object to. Here's hoping Kakashi's voice grows on me. I really like him in the Japanese version, and the English voice seems to strip that part of him away. Eep.

• Also, "believe it" seems to be Naruto's catch phrase. Maybe I should start counting how many times he says it in every episode. X3