A monster that became even scarier
An opponent who has stuck in my memory due to his absurd alteration appears in episode 141. There, Naruto, Sakura, and Sasame fight against Arashi. He is Sasame’s cousin but was turned into a mutated monster by Orochimaru’s experiments.
Normally, a growth forms on his back, which has two additional faces. The monster itself is already a creepy creature. But RTLZWEI made it into an incredibly terrifying monster that I found much worse after the change.
The monster’s back was turned into a black mass with a glowing purple edge and creepy eyes. The opponent looked like he had jumped straight out of my nightmares and disturbed me more at that time than the original.
Kidnapped, defeated – where did all the people go?
In the German version of the Naruto anime, it was avoided for characters to die. Rather, they were defeated or kidnapped. As viewers, this left the question of where all the kidnapped people were taken. Especially the sequence where Sasuke walks shocked through his deserted village seems odd.
Especially one clan raised big question marks for me: Itachi supposedly kidnapped the entire Uchiha clan. Until the end, I hoped that the Uchiha clan would eventually be freed. But while watching the original version, I was shocked: the entire clan had been murdered.
This change in the dubbing is especially dramatic because it alters the backstory of one of the coolest characters. Itachi had a good reason for his action, which was concealed in the RTLZWEI version.
From blood to water
The most cut scenes in Naruto are probably related to the depiction of violence. In the original, plenty of blood flows, not just in the fights. So it’s no wonder that the RTLZWEI version contains many cuts or re-touched blood splatters.
A few times, we do see blood, but the scenes appeared even more bizarre than usual. Rock Lee trained hard to be taken seriously with his Tai-Jutsu. During the fights, blood, sweat, and tears are not uncommon. However, there is a scene where Rock Lee bleeds from his hands – on RTLZWEI, this became liters of water dripping from his hands.
You can actually relive the complete story of Naruto in short form as a video game:
The localization team seems to have taken a liking to coloring blood as blue liquid. For example, in one episode, Naruto does not have blood dripping from his face but rather a blue liquid. The liquid is supposed to represent tears, but there is nothing visible on his face indicating sadness. Perhaps it would have been better to just eliminate the blood entirely.
Do you have any more examples of strange changes and cuts in Naruto? Feel free to let us know in the comments!
Gaara is a character who received a new look even before the Japanese TV broadcast: A popular character from Naruto received a new look because the creator is a fan of Keanu Reeves
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