Review: Sasuke VS Hiei

Note: There will be spoilers. Read only when your eyes are ready.

Does anyone else think Sasuke's background in the thumbnail looks like a ladybug, or is it just me?

The Background

It's been a while, hasn't it? Hold on, how long's it been since I actually finished something here? Oh, only over a year. Whoops. Well, that's all in the past now. I'm finally feeling motivated to get some more writing done, and I figured "Why not go with what's recent?" Instead of finishing my Doctor Strange VS Doctor Fate review, I've decided to review the most recent episode, which happens to be Sasuke VS Hiei. The reason for this is simple: Sasuke VS Hiei is more fresh in my mind than Doctor Strange VS Doctor Fate, and I'll get back to writing that one later. For now, let's focus on Sasuke VS Hiei. As per usual, I knew next to nothing about either character. All I knew was that this was a semi-requested matchup that finally came through. Do the episode and I see eye-to-eye, or is it just a sight for sore eyes?

The Analyses

As said before, I knew next to nothing about both Sasuke and Hiei. The only things I knew were that they had special eyes and that they were rivals to Naruto and Yusuke, respectively. Needless to say, the analysis of both needed to be well informative for a noob like me. First up was Sasuke. While they did give a lot of information about Sasuke, there's just one problem that I seemed to run into which has come up a few times before. During Sasuke's analysis, at some points, I felt a bit... confused. There were certain points where I was trying to keep track of both what was on screen and what was being said. While it's not usually a problem, if there's different topics being shown and discussed, it can be a bit overwhelming at certain points. And unfortunately, it's the same kind of way with Hiei. Granted, I did learn a lot about Hiei's origins, but it seems as though his abilities kinda just got mushed together. In short, while the analyses were good, that's all they ever really could be, since they give out a lot of information, but jumble it together with other things.

Favorite quote: "Damn, ladies, I know you're jealous, but you don't gotta take it on the kid. That's my stepfather's job!" - Boomstick, comparing the abuse Hiei suffered as a child to his abusive stepfather.

The Animation

With the analyses and one ExpressVPN ad out of the way, we move on to the animation. Generally, when it comes to the animation, I look for a few things: How good the fight track is, how good the motive or reason for the fight is, and how good in general the animation is. While this fight isn't perfect, it's still pretty good. Sasuke questions a wandering Hiei on where he's going, Hiei says it doesn't matter, Sasuke challenges this, and then they fight. Nothing too special to report on this one, though the hand-drawn elements do look pretty great. If Hiei wasn't too pixilated, they could almost pass it off as coming from the anime itself. The same could also be said for the collab Brandon Yates and ToxicxEternity fight track, "Dangerous Gaze." (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcLnPg-Gtas) It's a pretty rocking theme, though again, it's nothing special. It starts out strong, but after the fade during the illusion sequence, that's kinda where I start to lose interest. Still a good song, just not the best. 

Favorite moment: The epic one-slash ending confrontation. It seemed like it could've gone to either of them, and seeing Hiei standing at the end was definitely a surprise.

The Conclusion

This episode can be summed up as "Not the best, but not the worst." It's an overall pretty good episode. While I do have my issues with the information and animation being a bit confusing sometimes, that didn't stop me from enjoying myself with the episode. It's always fun seeing an underdog like Hiei come from out of nowhere with a win. Plus, if nothing else, I'm sure all the Sasuke haters were glad to actually see him get cut to pieces. There's no number this time, or possibly ever again, since most episodes would usually get a 5 at worst.

Next Time...

So, what's next? Well, I do plan on actually doing something with this blog, and it's not using it once every couple of years. Here's my plan: We're currently in season 6, and as of right now, I'm pretty behind on episode reviews. So, in order to catch up, I'd like to put out a review of an older episode every week, with the third week being a review of the next newest episode. And at the end of the year, I'd like to put out a countdown listing the episodes from worst to best, giving my opinions on them all in a little recap of sorts. And whenever I get bored of writing reviews, I'd like to put out something else. Maybe a separate countdown, like the least favorite to favorite original tracks in Death Battle. Just an idea. But that's my plan, and I'm sticking to it. So, expect a review out sometime next week, for whatever episode I end up watching. See you then!