Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles x Naruto is a mashup that has plenty of energy and fun for the time you'll spend with it. I was very skeptical of this book going in, I have to admit. Sure, sure, it had a lot going for it on the front-end. I know that I'm theoretically right in the crosshairs of a work like this: I have loved the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles since before the fall of the Berlin Wall and I've just recently completed the Naruto manga as of a few weeks ago. These two properties seem like a pretty natural fit in terms of both being about teams of brightly colored ninjas engaging in action-adventure hijinks with goofball comedy and strange villains. On paper it should be an easy sell to someone like me.

But I think my reservations were well-founded. For one thing, intellectual property mashups have become so commonplace in the modern media landscape that it's hard to get too terribly excited. Unthinkable crossovers are imminently thinkable: Chun Li and Peter Griffin can hit the griddy while killing Kylo Ren in Fortnite, Cloud and Minecraft Steve can have epic duels on Final Destination with no items, and on and on. It's easy to become cynical about crossover media being a hollow cash-grab that serves neither party's fandom all that well beyond “Oh my God I can't believe they did it!”

Color me pleasantly surprised then that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles x Naruto is actually an earnest and enjoyable attempt at a crossover story. In this telling the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are from Big Apple Village, which happens to be another village in Naruto's world. It is set during the earlier stretch of Naruto, the quintessential pre-timeskip Team 7 days when the kiddos are still learning the ropes. April and Tsunade have a meeting, and it grabs the attention of various parties, putting the Turtles and Team 7 on a collision course. While they initially fight one another, they realize that they need to team up to stop Shredder and the Foot Clan as they so often must.

My initial hesitation at the premise was largely unfounded. Naruto is certainly a setting with plenty of oddball details and hidden corners to its world. Having another village be around with a slightly higher base technological level is not so absurd - we see plenty of hints of modern day technology in Naruto's environmental details. The mutagenic ooze falls in line with any number of strange experiments conducted by the shinobi over the years, and monstrous creatures are frequent summons, companions, and more. For the Turtles' part, being present in a different dimension is basically just another Tuesday for them. They lack some of the more fantastical abilities that many of the characters in Naruto have, but that doesn't keep them out of the fight. Given their weapons, high level martial arts training, and amplified strength/speed/durability thanks to the ooze, they are basically just skilled taijutsu users with amplified physiques.

All this combines quite nicely into a quick adventure with Team 7 and the Turtles. Their various personalities and skillsets make for a nice mix with one another. There's some exciting fights between them, solid banter, and a big exciting payoff action scene when they join forces at the end. Not to mention that the four Turtles and the four members of Team 7 make it easy for them to square off when they fight one another or buddy up when it's time to cooperate. And of course the great little moments along the way, like the brothers introducing Team 7 to pizza.

The creative teamwork by writer Caleb Goellner, artist Hendry Prasetya, and Raul Angulo fits together nicely in this book. Goellner knows the characters well and gives them all enough time in the spotlight that it's satisfying, which is good given that many crossover works leave a lot of potential interactions on the table so to speak. Prasetya's renditions of both the Turtles and the Naruto cast members are terrific, with crisp line work, engaging posing, and great action sequences. Raul Angulo's colors find a nice blend of deep, dark environments and bright popping costumes on the heroes. The Naruto half of the cast look, well, identical and perfectly fitting, while the Turtles have slightly tweaked designs with more tacticool ninja bits to fit in with the world. It does create an odd situation though where even though I think the Naruto characters look terrific, I end up liking the Turtles designs more just because they're slightly different from the norm.

The only real negatives that I have of note are mostly due to length. There are four issues here, and that's enough time to have fun but not so long that you can get too crazy with it. By the time it's getting started it's basically over, and that doesn't leave a lot of room for exploration. On top of that, there is a lot of page time dedicated to the typical crossover tropes that you would expect: we have a first fight between heroes who are suspicious of each other before they talk and team up to fight the real enemy, we get a new iteration of the Turtles origin story to explain how they fit into the world, that sort of thing. You could probably guess the plot before reading and mostly be right. I don't think it's a bad thing necessarily - these tropes work and get used frequently with good reason. I also think “This is good and genuine but I wish there was more to enjoy/explore,” is pretty great as far as negatives go.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turltes x Naruto is a fun and fulfilling comic that avoids the cynical nature of most crossover media by being a genuinely good time with two veteran properties that play well together. It's vibrant and enjoyable, even if it's tropey at times and a tad short.