Did the name of this episode really just tell me to start me engines? Wouldn’t "the Chunin exams begin” be enough? Whatever. Anyway our new proctor throws us into the Chunin exam, and luckily it goes in a bit faster pace. First it’s a written exam, and there are strict rules. First there’s a time limit. If anyone cheats, they’re deducted two of ten points. If one person loses, all three lose. If anyone get a zero, they all fail. And with those rules, it’s pretty obvious Naruto will fail the exam, as written exams clearly aren’t his thing. But then we see the test is utterly complex, and Naruto could never pass, and even Sasuke can’t understand a single question. However, Sasuke soon realizes the test isn’t about the written exam, it’s about trying to cheat, and find exceptional ways of doing it. After that we start to see some of the ninjas unique way of cheating. The sound ninja hear the vibrations of the pencils, Kiba has Akamaru find answers, Shino uses a bug, etc. Meanwhile, Naruto who hasn’t gotten anything is offered by Hinata to cheat off her test. (Somehow nobody hears their conversation in this very quiet class) This is the first push for Hinata’s character, and I think that’s important because later she also has a large role to the cast. But as people are starting to get thrown out Naruto gets noble and swears he doesn’t need to cheat, then regrets it moments later. Anyway, then we see a little more of the other ninjas techniques like Gaara, Sasuke, and Neji. It ends as Naruto see that the hidden tenth question is his only hope, and that’s it. In the end the episode was kind of cool, and a good way to show the characters’ powers and abilities. It was weird to see them all in a class room, but it was interesting. It shows how smart these guys are, and I liked it much more than the last one. It’s a high seven for me, and a very nice episode. It has the usual character helping, but mostly focused on helping the characters by giving them cool abilities. Normally that doesn’t mean much, but when you have a whole cast of characters doing it, and add the Hinata part this was a good episode for characters. Anyway good episode, held the pacing well, but I’m ready for things to really get started.
