Naruto Shippuden episode 311 : Prologue of Road to Ninja

What They Say:
Madara is prepping his new jutsu Limited Tsukuyomi, choosing Naruto as his test subject. Meanwhile, Naruto is spending his day off alone in his room. Thinking that Naruto is lonely, Lee suggests they all go to the bathhouse .
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Sometimes there’s just a certain awkwardness to how long running franchises handle things. Take for example this episode, in which we get a prelude of sorts to a movie that came out in theaters in Japan almost a year ago. Naruto movies have always been loosely connected to the series since they’re just extended self contained side stories, but there have been times in this and other series where they do tie-ins to make sure there’s some binding to it. But usually that happens before the movie itself, not this far after it’s been said and done. Unfortunately for some overseas fans, such as myself, the movie hasn’t been released so I haven’t seen it yet so I can’t get the full binding effect. Especially since I just want more of the main storyline here and not another filler, no matter how well done it is at this point.
Adapting one of the manga chapters from awhile ago, we get that in between time of things going on where we see what Madara is up to and that most others have come off of other recent missions back at Hidden Leaf and things are kind of quiet for the moment. For Naruto, who has grown up a fair bit in the last few years, he’s enjoying some time alone at home but everyone else is getting different aspects of friends and family giving them grief and problems in their lives. There’s some fun to this where we see Naruto create clones of himself for company and the goofiness of how Sakura is still treated like a little girl by her parents, only to be saved by Lee who has come to deliver a message. Small moments like this are rather welcome and feel more polished than the usual non-story character material we get.
Where the show goes for a lot of the episode is rather fun if simple as everyone essentially ends up in the baths where they have fun, talk a bit and generally act a bit silly, which is something that helps Naruto immensely as he’s been feeling lonely in general and particularly because of the downtime with the way it has him in his place alone. This leads to a fair bit of simple fanservice, as the series is not one that really overdoes things compared to others, and there’s amusement to be had there even if it is all by the numbers. The general camaraderie of the group is one of the better aspects of the series in general after all this time and that’s something that’s nicely handled here, especially with the whole rallying around Naruto. And unfortunately, this is the best that Naruto has come across in his own series in quite some time since he’s had mostly lackluster appearances.
In Summary:
With a focus on friends, family and spending time in the baths, Naruto: Shippuden has a quiet filler episode here that works as part of the storyline that brings us to the Road to Ninja movie that came out about a year ago. The episode has some decent animation, a good look at the character designs in general that doesn’t feel cheap and some warm and fuzzy feelings in general. But like it does at the end, it shows that no matter what, we’re all still alone with ourselves. I liked the episode well enough for the lightness and the bonds that it wanted to work with, but it’s the last quiet scene that really was the most striking.