Posted by 
For a chapter with so many flashback revelations, it sure was hard to find a relatively spoiler free image to use that didn’t include Minato, Kushina, etc. In any case, it looks like I was a bit off the mark with my hunch last chapter that Naruto was still in Kushina’s womb when Madara attacked Konoha with the Kyuubi. Interestingly enough, the whole child birth portion of it did play a key role in all of this though. There were clearly more important things to focus on here, but I couldn’t help but feel how disadvantageous it is to have a female Jinchuuriki if the seal weakens when giving birth. If there’s one thing to be thankful about Naruto becoming the new host is that he has the Y chromosome, so he’s already a step up from his mother and the original host, Uzumaki Mito. The only thing I have a bit of difficulty accepting is how Konoha even allowed the Jinchuuriki to get pregnant in the first place if there’s a such a huge risk involved.
I suppose it technically isn’t that much of an issue since only the select few were even aware of the seal weakening, but word only had to reach the likes of Madara for it to become a history defining moment for all of Konoha. Still, both Mito and Kushina’s husbands were Hokages, so it would likely be more suspicious if they didn’t have kids for some reason and pass on their superior genes. What’s more, the story did emphasize that the host needs love to endure the difficulties that come with being one, making the outcome somewhat unavoidable as well. As such, I see the real cause of the problem as Madara and his vendetta with the Senju. Given Madara’s ultimatum at the end, I suspect Minato will end up saving Naruto over Kushina at the latter’s request. This in turn would result in the Kyuubi being harnessed from Kushina to attack Konoha later on, at which point we all know Minato sacrificed himself to reseal the tailed beast within Naruto. Incidentally, the whole family tragedy theme would still ring true for Naruto, though it’s nice to know that Minato and Kushina got to at least meet him before they died. At the same time, that was probably one of the most horrible moments for Kushina — seeing her newborn snatched away from her within minutes.
Story-wise, the linked ancestry between the Senju and Uzumaki reinforces the notion that the struggle between Naruto and Sasuke is the second coming of one between Hashirama and Madara. It also showed how Naruto’s one of the few remnants of the Uzumaki clan, none too different from Sasuke and the Uchiha. If nothing else, this revelation helped depict the different paths the two of them walked starting from strikingly similar circumstances. I find it hard to sympathize for Sasuke’s situation knowing that he willing chose to walk the path of darkness and hatred, but perhaps it’s simply a vicious fate he can’t escape as an Uchiha. It’s a shame to say the least, especially after seeing how well Kushina got along with Sasuke’s mother, Mikoto. I bet the last thing they were expecting their boys to grow up doing is trying to kill one another.
I’m pretty sure Sasuke rage will be handled in a poorly manner, the same as with Pain “pain”. probably an explanation of Madara toying with him, and that will make him switch again.
I’m not particularly excited about it, but I’m tired already of the author draging that “friend’s conflic” for so long…
I thought that about Pain as well at first, but after rereading the entire arc I actually liked how it ended. Kishi did a really good job with Nagato’s character and background, and him ultimately ending up helping Naruto was justified well.
plus kushina is said to be descendant of uzumaki mito.
not much to say but bad luck to naruto
this manga is on a roll.
WTF a baby Sasuke!!!!!
Hope to see some Minato action next week.
I agree with infinite, this arc has had some really good story telling and makes anticipation for next week so much stronger. . I still like the pain vs naruto arc the best. It had Hinata confession, Minato, eight tails naruto, and awesome sage naruto fights.
I find it amazing that someone can create a manga episode 1 and 500 chapters later the groundwork that he/she laid down in that 1st few chapters bears fruit like its doing now here in Naruto. I realize that the manga creater probably does some “fly by the seat of his pants” creating as he goes along making the manga but for everything to fit together so seamlessly 500 chapters later like it does in Naruto (and Bleach also) is just amazing.
bleach fitting everything together?
that is bull shit tite kubo just explain everything with “Aizen planned it”
The fact that it took 500 chapters to get to this point is, frankly, a gigantic failure in my eyes. And as Secsuey already pointed out, Bleach’s answer is literally everything is ‘Aizen did it’. Again, pretty much a giant failure.
Not really. Each arc had a purpose so you can’t really call it a failure that it took this long to get to this point. As opposed to Bleach where the last 200 chapters has been nothing but fight after fight after fight after fight and so on.
Sadly, Secsuey and Kurotetsu are right about Bleach at this moment in time. In terms of story telling, Bleach is failing compared to Naruto.
lol Bleach. I don’t mean to hate on it but to say that the story is seamless is just… lol.
hahahah ‘it was all part of the plan!!!’
Its worth mentioning that Naruto is going in the same direction as Bleach, with Madara being responsible for everything (except maybe the 3rd Hokage’s death).
Pretty good ending.
Madara’s line “Fourth Hokage, Minato. Back away from the Jinchuuriki or your son dies at the ripe old age of one minute.”
was pretty creepy.
It’s sad but most probably Kushina will force Minato to sacrifice her in order to save Naruto.
Now we know why Naruto’s mother was never around.
On a side note: the last anime episode, which covered the fight between Pain and the Six/Eight-tailed Kyuubi, was one giant WTF. I get that the chapter it was based on didn’t show much of the actual fight, but the director took some very interesting liberties and the art style was almost schizophrenic given how much it shifted around.
I really enjoyed this last episode of Naruto. Good fighting sequences.
I was rolling from how they animated Pain’s fighting sequences and his on-screen orgasm. It was too much lol. >D
Yeah, some parts of the episode (the art/animation) was probably done by another studio or something. I’ve seen that style before in Naruto and I don’t really mind it at all but the latest episode seemed to be a mix of the two.
Did you notice the way they animated Pain’s face when he said “MY PAIN IS FAR GREATER THAN YOUR’S!!1!” lol I wonder were they drunk or something? >D
Hahaha! Yeah I remembered his weird looking face. I did see that style of animation and art before. I’m just wondering where I’ve seen that.
Probably Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann and NEEDLESS. They had similar battle art styles to this week’s episode.
I cant but notice some TTGL elements in dat episode
Green spirals during the necklace sealing jutsu, looks similar to TTGL’s green spirals. coincidence? LOL at Pain having Spiral eyes.
I swear at the one point I thought that they were trying to animate pain taking a shit because it looked so bad.
i think it’s one of Studio Pierrot’s forte when it comes to action direction. bcoz if you rmember, if you watchd Yu Yu Hakusho, esp. the fight btween Hiei and Bui in the drk tournamnt, it was also the same style. they also used it in Ninku and Flame of Recca. although they didn’t use that style on Bleach, tht wud be disorienting, i think. but anyway, the best animation quality of naruto for me ever sinz d start of shipuuden is the one wid hinata’s confession. its like they’ve put all their money on that episode and the next one, to hide the fact that they dont hv enough to make it a great quality, they used that shaky style(or is it wat they call “flat-style”?? wat was it?), whch is not a problm really bcoz its still cool anyway. the next wik’s episode wud be d crap. =)
The masked man is such an evil bastard. He single handedly turned Narutos and Sasukes lives to a tragedy basically ruining them. He will get whats coming for him! How in the world did he know the location of Narutos birth? The only ppl who knew that were the parents and the elders. Don’t tell me Danzo leaked it to him…
Aizen planned that too…
Also, there is no way that Naruto does not inherit some clan technique from the Uzumaki. This isn’t a situation like Rock Lee, where it would ruin his character to actually have talent.
this is still a plot hole.it was said that the kyuubi was sealed in baby who just had the umbilical cord cut but with this new story naruto would have been probably a few hours old
/a baby who just had the umbilical cord cut/
Hmmm lets see
Naruto is just born, Madata takes him, shit hits the fan, Minato seals the Kyuubi in Naruto. I believe it is correct.
The ‘shit happens’ moment cannot last longer than a few minutes. Kyuubi wouldn’t take hours to try to destroy konoha.
It was Implied that the Uzumaki clan had Strong ties with the rikudo sage with their long lives.
So we assume at the end of the manga, Naruto is going to meet the Messiah?
It’s a shame that the anime isn’t blogged as well, the last last couple of arcs have been top notch quality and the pacing has improved greatly from the slow pacing we had at the start. Especially last weeks episode…
Show Spoiler ▼
lol this week’s episode had some of the best Pain shots ever. >D
http://img683.imageshack.us/img683/2002/horriblesubsnarutoshipp.jpg
http://img149.imageshack.us/img149/3592/horriblesubsnarutoshippb.jpg
http://img819.imageshack.us/img819/2002/horriblesubsnarutoshipp.jpg
http://img716.imageshack.us/img716/2002/horriblesubsnarutoshipp.jpg
rotfl
sad thing is thats only like 4 SS’s when the whole episode was like that. complete garbage production quality it was so disappointing.
I have to say the same about no naruto episode blogging because the last 10 or so have been pretty good, and I’m thinking about asking DIVINE if I can do it because naruto is actually a relitivly good show except when there are fillers and when there are the overly obsessed naruto fans which we all know are refered as narutotards. Damn bastards ruin a good show.
While it’s cool and all to (finally) see these bits of Naruto’s past, it really just highlights how absurd his childhood was. I mean, he’s the son of one Hokage, related to another, and every Konoha ninja wears his family/village seal on their backs? And they still treat him like dirt? You’d think his lineage at the very least would have warranted some kind of… foster-father, at the very least. A modicum of respect.
That has a logical explanation:
From the viewpoint of any person without a close relation to Naruto’s family: The last kyūbi host (Kushina) had let the monster go on a rampage, killing herself, her husband, and who knows how many others, destroying the village (or at least part) in the process. Not precisely the best memories to leave behind as a kyūbi host.
The elders decided to keep Naruto’s parents identity hidden from him, and probably not only from him but from a good part of the village. Any villager would consider Naruto not the son of Minato and Kushina (remember that his birthdate and place was supposed to be a secret!); but a random guy from the Uzumaki clan (which by that time was probably already scattered) who happened to become the third host of the kyūbi, due to being an Uzumaki.
I don’t really think you can compare Sasuke and Naruto’s situations, since the circumstances in how they were dealt their fate were completely different. Naruto didn’t find out that he came from any type of clan until this chapter and he didn’t even know them at that. In contrast,Sasuke grew-up with his clan and had to witness them being killed right in front of him by his idol. It would be interesting to how Naruto would have handled the situation had he been subjected to something similar.
Nonetheless, it was great finding where Naruto came from, finally. I was happy to find out that Naruto’s clan had some ties to the Senju, otherwise the “Naruto vs. Sasuke/Rikudou’s body vs. his eyes” thing wouldn’t have seemed as dynamic. There has been a lot of criticism on other sites that Kishi destroyed the core of Naruto’s character with this but I disagree completely. It’s not like Naruto or anyone else knew of his heritage or at least no one seemed to care, for the most part Naruto came up from nothing and still accomplished great things. To say just because he was born from prestige means the entire 499 chapters that led up to this means nothing is pretty silly.
I was pretty surprised that his clan specialized in Fuinjutsu and that it was Kushina who taught Minato sealing jutsu, that sounds a little backwards lol. So with this, I’m almost sure that the “That Jutsu” we’ve been hearing so much about is some kind of ultimate sealing technique that requires copious amounts of chakra to perform. At least that’s what I’m hoping, since I’ve wanted Naruto to learn Fuinjutsu ever since I watched Hiruzen fight Orochimaru.
Also, I noticed that Naruto was born with his whiskers. I thought he had developed them after the Kyuubi was sealed in him. I wonder if they’re a birth marked trait from Kushina giving birth while housing the Kyuubi?
I think it does weaken the early narrative. Remember, a big part of early Naruto was that he was able to achieve great things without being “special.” Look at the Chuunin Exam arc. The key theme there is that “hard work” can exceed “genius”–that effort is more important than blood.
And then, oh, look, he had special blood all along. How lucky!
I’m thinking it’s a cultural thing. In many of the Japanese stories I’ve seen, a “hero” can only ever be a hero if he has “noble” parents. It’s all about lineage. To look at other big shounen anime… Goku ends up being a super space alien. Ichigo ends up being the son of a Shinigami. Sure, they don’t know it… but it’s immaterial. The inherent message is that a man cannot achieve greatness by his own efforts, without first being born into greatness.
It’s particularly bad in Dragon Quest VIII. Spoilers will follow, here, naturally. In it, the principal anatagonist, Marcello, provides a very cogent, persuasive argument for the abolition of the aristocracy. The game itself bends over backward to illustrate the incompetence and pettiness of the nobility. Marcello, despite having one of the most sympathetic motives of any villain in any game, ends up being defeated by the player–a mere commoner. Keep playing the game, and what happens? The lowly commoner defeats the evil god and gets to marry the princess!
Perfect, ain’t it?
Only then in the post game you learn you’re not really a commoner at all, but the son of a dragon god.
Except Naruto was always “special” in the sense that he was a Jincuuriki in the first place. And it was always said Naruto had special chakra. The point isn’t that he had no potential, the point is that he had no talent to take advantage of the potential at the beginning and he had virtually no one to help him. He came from being hated to being the most loved person in the village. His special chakra didn’t help him to change the heart of a people and convince Nagato to give up his psychotic plans, it was his own resolve and beliefs. So I think that the argument that Naruto being “special” weakens the earlier narrative of the story has a flawed premise, since Naruto was special at the very beginning of the manga and it didn’t change anything about what people thought of him.
I don’t think “hard-work can exceed genius” was ever a key message, considering that all the geniuses in Naruto (other than Shikamaru) work really hard as well, and the case-in-point Lee never exceeded a genius. It was just a really strong character point for Lee that many people took to because they could sympathize, and erroneously attributed to Naruto’s character. One of the first things Naruto did was learn a high-level jutsu with only a couple hours of self-study and perform it perfectly – there has to be something special there, both regarding chakra and general ability.
Well, we can’t forget that the Kage Bunshin isn’t a high Level Kinjutsu because of any sort of complexity involved (it wouldn’t take a smart genius to perform), but really because of the dangers to the user; Firstly, because it uses up a lot more chakra than other Bunshins (normal or element-based) and secondly, because of the mental backlash of having several dispelling at once because of their ability to transfer their memories to the user.
As we see during Pain’s invasion, Konohamaru was able to make at least 2 (1 as a distraction and 1 to help create the small Rasengan).
The fact that Konohamaru can perform the Rasengan means that he’s no chump ninja, thus, that he can also perform Kage Bunshin isn’t evidence that it’s not complex. Just because there are other difficulties to doing the jutsu, doesn’t mean that performing it cannot be complex.
a bit suprised when they showed sasuke and his mother. hopefully we will know the truth y itachi actually killed the uchiha clan members in a about another year cus its taking so long to release the chapter. not complaining much y the chapters isnt release faster but how come they make 2 different teams to work on like ideas on the new chapter and making the chapter.
Or is it the company cutting down people so they can save more money and at the same time make want it more cus of the suspense on every chapter being release?
Anybody notice how piss-poor the management of this supposedly *top-secret* information about Naruto’s lineage was? Gee whiz, we got this kid hailing from a nearly extinct clan, said clan probably only having one person around parenting age residing within the Hidden Leaf, said person being the wife of the *famous* Fourth Hokage, and to top it off, he grows up to look just like his mother with his father’s hair to the point that people keep on commenting on the similarities (only *if* they’re already in on the secret, of course)! My *god*, how could they ever guess?
I am not looking forward to seeing this labour scene animated, damn it looks painful.
madara was already naruto’s enemy since he was 1 minute old! how evil can the guy be?!
Alll I can say about this chapter is….
COOOOORNYYY cheese.
I was getting flashbacks of the horror that is gundam seed destiny, thorough the entirety of the chapter. And pretty much everything including the “cliffhanger” felt meh…
There were the times when I expected “the kyuubi disaster” flashback to be an epic and interesting scene, with thousands of ninjas all at once fighting a huge demonic scary being, who does not have any reasons and is just purely malevolent eldritch horror creature.
No ridiculous ki-balls or bullshit, just awesome wuxia-style combat that equals a man fighting against a hurricane…Then their leader, having no other choice uses this old forbidden tech to stop the creature, sacrificing his life…
And what did we get instead?
Bond-Villain-Madara-who-is-not-really-madara pulling out just-as-planned and purposely making kyuubi(who kishi forgot how to draw) loose so he sets in motion whatever he wanted to set in motion.
meh.
“This is why women have babies, you men can’t handle the pain” .. lol
if its from a male, how would the transfer happen then?
OT, since when did the RandomC picture change? its very, very nice.
nothing much to say. it was funny that naruto’s father panic
madara: i’ve come to steal the nine…..
*sees kushina in the middle of childbirth*
madara: ewwwwwwwww…
@_@
… and THAT’S why Madara waited until Naruto was born to make his move. Also please notice that he took Naruto with gloved hands
I get the feeling that Sasuke’s mother was involved with Madara finding out about the baby Naruto. Just a hunch.
Don’t tell me that Mikoto is in love with Minato but all of the sudden Kushina gets his attention and they fall in love each other. With Mikoto heartbroken, get another guy from her clan instead. So love brings pain.
Has there been one good fight in naruto shippuden that has been as good as the fights in the orginal naruto? Im really asking because i havent been keeping up with shippuden since I watched the first few episodes and the fights were all really dull, slow moving and every move seemed to have a waiting period in between it to draw out the episode. I just watched the 6-9 tail fight with pain and it was boring imo.
Killer bee and the Raikage will be your best examples of crazy battles with nice insight.
Or just the Kages meeting arc. That one is amazing.
Wow the leaf village are idiots! They couldn’t connect the Naruto-Minato-Kushina link? And the third is an idiot. It wouldn’t hurt to ask someone to take care of a child(Naruto) and don’t tell them about the Kyuubi. Wasn’t supposed to be a secret after all. So many plotholes here Kishi.
some people knew like kakashi, tsunade, jiraiya, tsunade and i bet there was more but they could speak about it because of the rule that third put.
*sigh* If there is one thing I wish someone could explain to me about his manga is why…. why…. WHYYYYYY has this been kept from Naruto till this day?
It would seem like that not even Jiyira knew this information as what he put forth was only a hypothesis that the 9 tails attack on the village was not an accident? WTF?? DUHH!! If the damn beast was inside Kushina, how was the attack not an accident?
http://www.onemanga.com/Naruto/370/15/
Umm.. how can the 9 tails be something that appears from nowhere when it’s in Kushina? Everyone should have known this.. (sigh)
Since there was a risk that the Kyuubi might escape during childbirth, there was the chance that Kyuubi might’ve escaped even without Madara’s interference. Thus, anyone who didn’t know about Madara or couldn’t pin a solid motive on someone, would say it was an accident that occured because of childbirth.
It was kept a secret because like… 3 people knew about it and they’re all dead. The Third didn’t even want to tell Naruto. Minato and Kushina couldn’t be accessed without interacting with the seal, which Naruto has only just become ready for.
Reading this entry made me d’awww. I like how you connected and logicized everything. Almost better than reading the chapter. lol.
does anyone else see the Naruto – Harry Potter similarities?
So Uzumaki Mito was the First’s wife? And Tsunade is the Firsts Granddaugther?
Does that mean that Naruto and Tsunade are relatives or aren’t mito and kushina related?
Also, doesn’t Minato have some awesome Origins? Never heard of a Naruto maincharacter who has no extreme family background.