Customer Rating: 
Summary: Chunnin Exam pt. 2.5: Shonen Tournament
Comment: It seems every shonen series has to have a tournament, going all the way back to the budokais of the original Dragonball (Dragon Ball - Tien Shinhan Saga Set) and Naruto is definitely no exception. This box set picks up during the preliminaries of the final round: there are too many people and now everyone has to fight an opponent to advance and to narrow the field.
The fourth box set doesn't stray from the designs of the first three, and for me that is a good thing. Lots of episodes in a pretty box is good enough. Once again I can only speak for the regular box sets, not the limited edition ones with the toys.
This group of episodes basically takes Sasuke out of the fold for awhile after his fight and minimizes Naruto quite a bit, though his fight does have one of the more memorable endings. Instead, we are treated to a pretty entertainings series of matches between secondary characters.
This comes with its pluses and minuses, there are many characters getting a turn at the spotlight and not all of them are entertaining. The fight between Sakura and Ino is a particularly bad, drawn out low point. Sakura had her turn in the spotlight protecting Naruto and Sasuke in the last disc (Naruto Uncut Boxed Set, Volume 3), and that turned out decent. But this time it is way too boring and drawn out.
On the positive side, you get a good amount of background on characters like Gaara, Rock Lee, Neji & Hinata. And see one of my favorite characters, Shikamaru, start to show his brilliance. Probably the biggest highlight of the disc is the battle between Rock Lee and Gaara, which shows that the action in this series can be just as great as any out there. Overall, this disc is still a very good one, and holds up the standards of the previous discs. I definitely recommend it.
