Board Thread:Naruto Discussions/@comment-12509038-20150926041017

As you may or may not know, next week we will get a new opening. It will be the eighteenth opening of Naruto Shippuden, it is titled LINE, and will be performed by Sukima Switch (who also sung Star Vessel, the main theme song of The Last). Since the anime is very close to concluding the content from the core series, this may very well be the final opening of the series (of course, unless they intend to give us more filler that will drag out the series). Therefore, this opening should go down as one of the better ones in the series. So with that, I ask you this- what are your predictions, expectations, and/or hopes about what will be included in this upcoming (and possibly final) opening?

Here is what I want to see-

1. As far as content that will be included in this opening, I'd like to see a bit of the Kaguya fight touched on, but a larger focus on Naruto and Sasuke's final battle. This is the climactic fight that I and a lot of people have been wanting to see, and we probably won't actually get to see it for a few months. So a little bit of actually seeing these two engaging in combat will serve as a nice teaser for the main event. Also, it would be nice to see possibly a small tease to the next generation/quick appearance of Naruto as the Seventh Hokage. After all, it's not like the openings are above spoiling manga content (Kaguya appears in Opening #17, and she has yet to even appear in the anime!). Finally, if this is indeed the final opening, then I would love to see some sort of a callback to the series as a whole. The best example is what Opening #16 did with the montage at the beginning; I absolutely loved that and it's what I always imagined seeing in the final opening.

2. Excellent animation would be the second most important element I want to see. And I don't mean excellent artwork, though that is also a very important. But I would like to see a lot of fluid motion and action from the character as opposed to just still images like we've had in earlier openings. This really shouldn't be a problem, as most Naruto Shippuden openings have had great animation in the past. The only ones that haven't really had good animation (as well as have just been downright boring from a visual department) is openings #5, #8, #10, #12, #15, and even the recent one, #17. If we're looking for examples of good animated openings, then what I am talking about is openings such as #4, #6, #7, #9, #13, and #16. Those are the best openings from a visual department in my opinion- if they can recapture that greatness, then I will be satisfied.

3. The next item on the list is an excellent song. It was only recently that I realized how much I actually enjoy the songs of the openings, and just how important they are to the success. In the past, I always thought it was more of the visuals that counted above anything else. Just for the sake of mentioning it, let me just say that I absolutely love every single opening song of the original anime except for the ninth opening. When it comes to Shippuden, my favorite songs from the openings are from #3, #4, #6, #9, and #16 (with openings #6 and #16 tied for my favorite song). All of the other ones range from good to just okay. But back on track, after hearing Sukima Switch's song from The Last, I have the utmost faith that they will be able to give us an extremely solid and satisfying song. I'm not a music person, so I don't know how to explain what I want; all I can really say is that it needs to have the right amount of hype and heart- almost like a combination of #6 and #16.

4. The final hope that I have for this opening is that it will be one of the few openings to actually give us a genuine impression of what we can expect from the actual anime content. Since this is the most unorthodox expectation, let me explain what I am talking about by using opening #16 as an example. One of the reasons why I loved opening #16 so much is because of the visuals from the Obito and Madara battles made it look like they were going to be adapted to an extremely awesome degree. For example, in the Obito portion, it showed Sasuke's Susanoo riding Naruto's Kurama Chakra Mode; in the Madara portion, it showed Madara enaging in extremely fast taijutsu with Hashirama and Tobirama, while also fending off against Sasuke's Lightning Release attacks. All of this was so awesome to watch... and none of that was ever in the anime. I was never truly expecting to get anything that incredible, but it just a huge letdown to see such epic content and have it followed by a sub-par episode. So with that in mind, what I want the animation team to do this time is to actually take content that appears in this opening, and implement that highly intensified and often epic content into the actual anime episodes. So if there is an extravagant Naruto vs. Sasuke sequence that appears in the opening and does not appear in the manga, they should take the content from the opening and build upon that in the anime to make the fight much more enjoyable. I hope I was able to explain this so that it was not confusing. 