If someone told me that we’d see a continuation of the A and B’s backstory this chapter, I would’ve said they must be pulling my leg. Luckily no one did, as we had a full chapter of backstory with more to come later on. I figured Bee got his point across with the fist bump last time, and the flashback was simply intended to illustrate how they’re able to communicate without words, but the latter is shaping out to be the message itself. However, it does appear that Bee is trying to tell A why he’s so supportive of Naruto, or more specifically, to remind him of the hardships that a Jinchuuriki has to go through. The minor plot twist of sorts was their encounter with Minato of course, which at a minimal, emphasized that A knows first-hand just how fast the late Fourth Hokage was. After I went on a bit of a tangent about speed last chapter, it’s almost as if the story wanted to make it clear to readers like me that yes, Raikage is pretty darn fast himself.

Naturally, that was overshadowed by the immediate show of respect on Minato’s behalf after realizing that he’s up against a Jinchuuriki who’s very much in control of the Tailed Beast within him, followed by the cryptic words of advice he gave A before he retreated. Quite frankly, I don’t really care to speculate about something that will probably be explained in the very next chapter, but my initial hunch is that Minato was advising A to learn what Bee is using to fortify his resolve as a Jinchuuriki so that he can support him and prevent him from falling into a state of despair like those before him. For Bee, this is likely A, whereas for Naruto, it’s all the friends he’s made and will do anything to protect. All of this sounds rather contrived when I put it into words, but the idea is that A would see his friendship with Bee as a means of relating to Naruto and his frantic desire to join the front lines. Naruto probably feels he wouldn’t have overcome the loneliness of being a Jinchuuriki without his friends, much like Bee does without his “bro” A. The sentimental aspect of that hunch is a little cheesy, but it does send a meaningful message to young readers like I’ve come to expect from this series.

Okay, that’s enough speculation for now.

25 Comments

  1. I WANT FIGHTS!!!!!!!!! XD But the thing is, where was the 9 tailed fox when the incident happened… I thought that all the powers were divided equally between the nations at a single point of time. And Minato was still not the Hokage, then?

    1. If Minato was already that old it was probably Kushina at that point, she didn’t just become a host before getting pregnant.

      I forgot they were suppose to be divided equally, the Raikage sure was greedy going after a third Tailed Beast.

      Firefly
  2. I always thought that Bee and the Raikage were genetic brothers. I guess they aren’t, judging by the tests that are going on. But then, backstory is nice, but I didn’t really want to see any for Bee, especially when the story was looking to get back to Naruto getting some fight scenes in. He’s been on the sidelines for a while now.

  3. I thought Minato was sharing his experience because of Kushina. She was a jinchuuriki as well, at least that’s what I gleaned from much of their talk. He could relate to the position that A was in.

    soldierx
  4. Don’t side character flashbacks usually mean someone is going to die?

    Anyhow, yeah it was a rather boring set of chapters we have had to go through the past couple of weeks. I would love to get back to the action and war.

    Ricalloo
  5. You haters are gona hate, but Bee and Raikage are some of the best new characters ever introduced! You got one guys who can shoryuken and powerbombs people, and you got another who raps. They are also black~! You cant beat that combination.

    YanDaMan
  6. next chapter would probably go something like this:

    they are fighting an enemy, maybe several.
    raikage is troubled by what minato said and what bee could be thinking.
    raikage is taken by surprise and looks like he’s gonna get hit.
    but bee intercepts it and asks him whats the problem.
    raikage goes blah blah about what bee could be thinking.
    bee then shuts him up and he poses for a bro-fist.
    raikage bro-fists him and then feels what bee is thinking.
    *insert emotional words and scenes here*

    on a side note.
    @Divine
    are you gonna post your final thoughts about the spring season anime at the next retrospective look? I hope you will cause I wanna see your rating and thoughts on the other animes that arent being covered here.

    amado
  7. hope the flashback ends here.. Naruto has been out of the picture for a long time now. a long flashback won’t do good for me at this point. I need to see Naruto in action!

    MrRei
  8. I really don’t know how exactly Raikage got to be the leader of the Shinobi alliance. I think that Tsunade, Gaara, Tsuchikage or Mizukage would have all been better choices than this guy. His solution to the war is to kill Naruto, which would lead to war with the Hidden Leaf; he could also just kill Bee, but we all know he won’t do that.

    I don’t really care about this flashback at all. There have been way too many lately – just hurry up with the giant ninja war already. Naruto hasn’t done anything for a while… and seeing how overpowered sage mode was against Pain, am I to believe that in Kyuubi mode he can’t get past Raikage?

    K.K.

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