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I can see what Itachi’s thinking by not spelling everything out for Sasuke and entrusting his fate to Naruto instead, but part of me did wish that he didn’t go for the roundabout approach with his misguided younger brother. Sasuke is still hell-bent on destroying Konoha and any attempts by Itachi to suggest that his death should’ve satisfied Sasuke’s thirst for revenge only has the opposite effect. To me that suggests Sasuke is just conflicted over how Itachi let him live and purposely fueled his hatred so that he would kill him one day, and can’t help but channel all that pent up rage elsewhere after finding out the truth. As such, Itachi is very much to blame for the path that Sasuke’s walked — something that he realizes in death didn’t work out as he had hoped — which is probably why he chose to leave it up to the living to decide what’s “best” for Sasuke now.
Incidentally, this is the first time that I agree with Sasuke’s standpoint more than Itachi’s, even though I understand Itachi’s good intentions. By letting Sasuke live so that he could atone killing his clan, Itachi has not only made Sasuke walk down a path of revenge, but a path of (seemingly) no return that he would not have taken on his own. While Naruto has a remote chance of bringing him around, it’s getting to the point where the only thing that Sasuke can do to redeem himself is to sacrifice himself to protect Konoha. When he’s in waist-deep working with Orochimaru/Kabuto and Tobi and waged war on other countries, it’s not like he just return to Konoha scot-free. Of course, I’m not opposed to the potential scenario where Sasuke lends a helping hand and remains a rogue ninja, but I can’t say that would have nearly as much of an impact.
As for that “other battle”, I actually like Madara’s arrogance since it more or less makes him the epitome of evil in the series. His arrogance will likely serve as the perfect setup for Tsunade’s “never say die” will of fire that was inherited from her grandfather and resparked by Naruto, so it has that going for it as well.
sorry for over-reacting in your goodbye post!!
i appreciate you blogging this (esp. if it’s your last post!!)
take care!! and good luck!!
I like how Kishimoto actually separated Madara and Tobi’s “personality”.
Madara is the classical ego-maniacal villain, while Tobi is one who seems to hold nothing in high regard (even himself). It’s just such a nice contrast and it makes Tobi’s petty nature that much more interesting.
Good observation…
I may sound like a fanboy, but Tobi slowly grew on me as a very cool villain. Even though he always seems to have the upper hand, what makes him so awesome is that he’s not an all-powerful and arrogant douche who is full of himself. (Aizen comes to mind…Ugh…)
Actually, he has barely survived some encounters, and even lost some! Not everything goes according to his plans too, which makes him much more relatable.
Against Minato: Lost and was 100% owned by the Hokage.
Against Konan: Barely survived. Lost an arm and an eye in the process. Maybe more stuff too.
Naruto against Pain: Totally foiled Tobi’s plans by putting Pain out of the game.
Against Danzou: Danzou almost takes out Tobi (and Sasuke) with him when he suicides.
Telling the truth to Sasuke: Itachi’s plan was successful and Sasuke unconciously awakened Amaterasu to burn Tobi to his death…Close call there once again.
Very very cool from Kishimoto as regards to Tobi’s personality. He may always talk like he knows everything, but he has been dumbfounded and owned several times by now. He’s even feeling a bit of pressure and fear against Naruto in the current chapters…It’s never a dull moment with him.
Great villain!
I agree with everything you just said. It’s funny because I initially I disliked Tobi, but as things went on, he grew on me as a really cool and well-thought out villain.
While Pain/Nagato remains as my favorite Naruto villain, I must say that Tobi is pretty cool on his own.
Yeah, I also disliked Tobi as the (apparently) main villain in the beginning…The fact that all this time he had been by Deidara acting like an idiot didn’t help either. He still hasn’t said anything about that nor given any explanation…
It’s as if he didn’t know what to do with Tobi’s character, and finally gave up and made him the main villain. To me, it seems Kishimoto wanted to give an ‘amazing’ twist by revealing Tobi’s true identity, but it didn’t have that much impact, at least to me…
Having said that, Kishimoto has really pulled through with Tobi’s character, so that initial grude I had against Tobi is more than forgiven.
hashirama must be a total hax badass shinobi to be able to kick this insane uchiha named madara. now i want kishi to show us how awesome their fight at the valley of the end.
Well if you corpse gets raped as much as his, it HAS to be bad asss!
I doubt it was that easy though, especially with the image of him facing him AND Kurama down. i wouldn’t be surprised if he actually came close to losing, but having Mito (his Uzumaki wife) around helped him out like Kurama did with Madara. It just shows that Hashirama inched out Madara in the end.
Also, I wouldn’t be surprised if near the end, or after the series is done, that an OVA series is made that shows us a more in-depth view of…
– The Clan Wars that preceded the Hidden Villages.
– Leading up to the creation of Konoha and the others
– Madara’s betrayal and his battle with Hashirama that created the Valley of the End (and all that truly happened in the fight)
– Tobirama training Hiruzen, Homura and Koharu
– Hashirama’s death (it only says he died in battle, but not how) and Tobirama’s ascension as the Nidaime Hokage.
– His creation of the Konoha Police Force, ANBU, the Academy, and such.
– Up to when he appoints Hiruzen as Sandaime before sacrificing himself to let them all escape (and what he did after).
– See what Hiruzen did during his reign as Sandaime (including some behind the scenes stuff like his attempts at pacifying the Uchiha’s coup) up until the beginning of the series.
i just saw the other day a fight between madara and hashirama from a ps3 naruto game, which they said that kishi approved everything on it including the battle scenes. just a glimpse of that battle proves that they are the best of all time. madara clearly outshines the current kages.
sasuke-naruto will end the senju vs uchiha clash with a battle to death ending or they will reconcile and be the sage of six paths.
Apparently it was animated as part of the opening sequnce to a newish naruto game that came out. Ive seen the video. (im guessing that it was made before these chapters though cos it aint that great! *sigh*)
Wow, umm…Where could I find this video guys?
Nevermind, found it easy in youtube.
Damn this is just too epic
Wow, it was an awesome surprise to find you posting about Naruto, Divine! Does that mean you’ll keep blogging GC and Naruto too? No complaints here, if that’s the case. Job comes first though, but you must know that much better than me..
About the chapter, it’s the first time in a long long time that I was left underwhelmed by this week’s chapter. As you said Divine, the fact that Itachi refuses to talk to Sasuke, for whatever reason Kishimoto put in Itachi’s mouth, seems dissapointing. Even more so given how much anticipation everyone (rightfully so) had for the destined Itachi&Sasuke encounter.
Kishimoto, make Itachi turn around suddenly and punch Sasuke in the face (images of Kamina yelling “Snap out of it, Simon!” comes to mind too). That’s all I ask for. Do whatever you want later: make Sasuke go apesh*t evil mad and kill his brother (somehow), anything.
Just…don’t leave it like that, please. Their conversation is killing for some one-liners by Itachi.
…Thanks for the post Divine!
PS: BTW, everyone, last week’s Naruto anime episode (252), it was Tobi vs Pain’s-girl-friend, the one who uses papers. I loved their fight in the manga, and from what I saw in the preview, it looks like the studio is making this episode one of those “Blow ALL the budget in this fight!” . I’m about to watch it in a few minutes…I’ll surely enjoy it, and if any of you are interested in seeing it, I highly recommend it for you!
Update: So the episode had lots of flashbacks, I’ll warn you. I still don’t complain though, I always loved everything that was Pain-related(no pun intended). The fight will conclude in this week’s episode…
So long, Konan :'( You were without a doubt the most awesome female character combat-wise…
…couldn’t you have just said Kanon?
Besides, she was never Pain’s girlfriend. She only had implied feelings for Yahiko, but they never went anywhere, AND they were in flashbacks.
Couldn’t remember her name at the beginning, so I said girl-friend, not necessarily meaning GF. The fact you knew I was talking about Konan means the phrase served its purpose 😉
By the end of the episode, of course I remembered her name was Konan, but given there’s no edit button….*wink wink admins*
Since Sasuke is unintelligent, Itachi needs to SPELL IT OUT FOR HIM and tell him to learn from Naruto. Hints won’t be enough. In fact, they confuse Sasuke more than doing nothing, since Sasuke’s character stumbles when there’s a secret. He gets anxious and then he becomes psychotic, the little ****stain.
-The judgement of Tobi.
Yeah, I never got why Konoha called Sasuke a genius. He’s really stupid, which most fans knew since the Sound Four arc. Maybe they meant he was talented… that’s one of the less common definitions of genius.
To be fair, Vegeta commented that Goku was a genius too.
FreezaMadara is out to kill White MageDendeTsunade~And..what the heck, Itachi >_>? These geniuses are so smart that they’re rounding back to stupid…
Madara stated that Hashirama was the strongest ninja (let us not take the sage into account), is Hashirama stronger than Sarutobi in his prime? Madara was alive all this time along so I think he knows how strong was Sarutobi.
Naruto loosing its popularity in RC huh? 😀
or the chapter is really boring that people does not want to talk about it?
I re-watched the the pain arc and it was great. He was one of the best character of the series for me any way. I don’t like sasuke at all, I don’t know the reason or maybe because he personalities is not believable in real life however seem how naruto is really a nice guy as to hate nagato without fightting him to death, it is something that nagato (I think notice)change of heart.
the episode where naruto turn into the nine tails and went after Yahiko was nice, you can sense the urgency of the situation the Yahiko was in.
they have ended Naruto there and it would be fine.
I long ago accepted that as an American male who likes Sasuke as a character I would be a rather distinct minority on the internet, but there’s not much to be done about that. I’ll just say I liked having an insight into what he’s going through apart from “LOL, I’M EVIL AND CRAZY.” The confusion and pain he’s feeling doesn’t really excuse his being a homicidal maniac since the Danzo fight, but at least there’s more to his behavior than Tobi’s Sharinhax or sheer batshit insanity. His grip on sanity still seems tenuous at best, but at least an effort’s being made to give his behavior and motivation more depth.
I’m beginning to wonder if the Tsuikage’s number’s up in this fight. He’s had the deadly Naruto flashback sequence now, so the odds are high that he’ll pull some heroic sacrifice to save the others and/or defeat Madara.
Good Naruto, you’re looking kind of adult.