Naruto Unleashed Series 6 - Volume 2   Starring (voice): Chie Nakamura, Junko Takeuchi and Noriaki Sugiyama Manga RRP: £24.99 MANG5081 Certificate: 12 Available 29 June 2009

Konoha, the Hidden Leaf Village, is your average ninja hamlet; except for one thing... it contains Naruto Uzumaki. Unbeknownst to the children, but known to their parents, Naruto’s body contains the trapped spirit of Kyubi, a demon fox that had been defeated twelve years ago. Because of their parent’s behaviour towards Naruto, the children of the village also treat him with deferential fear. All Naruto wants is to become the best ninja that he can and win the respect of the villagers. Now, well into his training, he spends as much time playing around as he does on his studies, but dark forces are gathering and Naruto’s friendship with Mizaki looks irreparable...

Naruto Unleashed: Series 6 - Part 2 continues the increasingly repetitive adventures of Naruto Uzumaki in this three disc DVD set. When we last saw our young hero he was having continuous problems with Fujin and Raijin, the Legendary Stupid Brothers, and nothing much has changed as we go into the second half of season six.

Disc one holds episodes 144-147, A New Squad! Two People and a Dog; A New Formation: Ino-Shika-Cho; Orochimaru's Shadow; and A Clash of Fate: You Can't Bring Me Down, wherein Naruto continues his troubles with the brothers and Iruka is having is also having problems with Mizuki. For reasons too complicated to go into Naruto and Iruka start to fight again, whilst Team 10 take on the brothers. But the focus here is on Mizuki’s desire for revenge and to this end he uses alchemy to transform himself into a monstrous form. The disc ends with the defeat of both the brothers and Mizuki. Audio options are the same for each of the discs with options for either a reasonable English dub or the superior Japanese track with optional subtitles. The only extras are five trailers.

Disc two holds a further five episodes (148-152): Search for the Rare Bikochu Beetle; What's the Difference? Don't All Insects Look Alike; A Battle of Bugs: The Deceivers and the Deceived; Blaze Away Byakugan: This Is My Ninja Way; and Funeral March for the Living. With all the nonsense with Mizuki, sort of dealt with, he still refuses to help Naruto find Sasuke. Shino comes up with the great idea of using a beetle to track Sasuke by scent and this mission (eps 148 to eps 151) pits him against the tribe of bug users, though ultimately the whole thing fails.

Episode 151 commences the mission which concludes across the whole of disc three, which contains episodes 153 to 156: A Lesson Learned: The Iron Fist of Love; The Enemy of the Byakugan; The Dark Creeping Clouds; and Raiga's Counterattack. This time Naruto is pitted against Raiga.

So if you’re a fan of the show, it pretty much ticks all the Naruto boxes with a lively mixture of comedy and action with a number of well choreographed fight scenes. The level of animation has remained high throughout, even if some of the storylines are uninspired and repetitive. Still, you can’t say that you’re being hard done by with thirteen episodes for your money.

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Charles Packer