PAN-CHAN'S REVIEWS

NARUTO
DUB EPISODE 7 -- "The Assassin of the Mist"

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

• Reference: This episode was good to explain the upcoming story arc, to introduce Zabuza, to introduce Kakashi a little better, and to explain sharingan.

• I wasn't sure last episode, but now that we've really heard him, I'm absolutely in love with Steven Blum as Zabuza. I've loved him since he did the voice of Flamedramon on Digimon, but I wasn't sure what would happen with Zabuza. I was definitely pleasantly surprised. ^______^ He pulls of Zabuza's character without sounding dry, and he pumps some extra personality into him as well. It's great!

• It's bothering me that I can't seem to get used to Kakashi's voice. Every episode seems to have something that bugs me (which is odd). This episode, it was the way anger was expressed in his voice when he was losing patience with Tazuna's lack of explanations. It sounded really unnatural. But on the plus side, I'm liking his voice when he explains things. ^^;;; There's hope yet.

• This episode marks where I officially like Sasuke's dub voice. It had considerable depth in this episode, and it makes sense to me why Yuri Lowenthal was chosen as his voice, because he has the capacity to capture Sasuke -- the highs, the lows and the large amounts of emotional instability. I'm looking forward to hearing more in future episodes.

• I'm not sure if I'm the only one that feels this way and I have my suspicious as to why, but a lot of concepts seem clearer and more concrete in dubs. It might be because not understanding Japanese, hearing something in English has it make more sense. Or maybe it has to do with a "official" translation over fansubs. Hmmm.

• "Believe it" Count: 3 (if you count the one in the preview for the next episode)