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No, the post title isn’t in reference to the StarCraft II trailer, but to all the resurrected ninjas at Kabuto’s disposal. Among them is Shin, Sai’s brotherly figure from his days in Root, who looks like he’ll be providing the first interesting fight in this war. While I can’t say this match-up is anywhere near my top list on ones I’d like to see first, I’m curious to see how Sai handles it now that he shows more emotion than ever before. The other interesting pairing is a rematch between the puppet masters, Kankurou and Sasori, the latter of which who was able to walk away as the victor with ease before. If things do play out that way, Omoi will likely be left to deal with the highly volatile Deidara, who won’t hesitate to make a living bomb out of anyone. On paper, it looks like the stage has been set for three one-on-one battles taking place concurrently — which is completely fine from an action point of view — but does leave me wondering exactly how much time will be spent on all of these encounters. As seen this chapter, the war itself got underway fairly quickly with lots of casualties on the ninja alliance side, so it would be kind of odd to see that rapid development on several fronts come to a complete standstill to focus on the individual fights every time. Should that be what’s in store, I can definitely see this war dragging out for a full year of manga releases if need be. It would be a good thing for those who care enjoy the fighting first and foremost, though probably not be the most interesting form of progression for those who want to see the story move forward.
Personally, I sit somewhere in between. I’m all for the shounen action, but I’m not all about it either. Hopefully there will be a good balance so that the chaotic nature of the war isn’t lost to formalistic battles. As much as I’d like to see each of these group battles depicted in detail, I’m leaning towards the idea that the vast majority need to be covered noticeably briefer than we’re accustomed to, otherwise we won’t be seeing Naruto come into the picture for a long time to come. However, I do realize that nothing has happened in the story quite to this scale before, meaning that anything’s possible at this point. Story-wise, one notable tidbit is the order to capture Kabuto alive in hopes of getting him to cancel the Edo Tensei technique, as if that were the easiest thing to do in the world. Even with all the ninjas in the world assembled to stop him and Madara, part of me thinks they should just try to take him out (if they can) and know that he won’t be summoning any more. Capturing him alive just upped the difficulty a fair degree, especially when Kabuto/Orochimaru can slither his way out of almost any situation.
Other than that, I can’t help but look far into the future on what this alliance means for all the villages. With all their ninjas working together and reorganized according to their abilities, I’d imagine that a lot of their hidden techniques will get revealed to former enemies along the way. From that point on, it almost seems like there would be no going back to the way things were before, at least not without a shift in power from all the intelligence gained. As such, I’m looking forward to seeing the state of the world after the war, just as much as the end result of the war itself.
I personally liked this chapter a lot. One thing I’ve always loved about this series is Kishimoto’s willingness to put the spotlight on characters other than Naruto, and make them interesting. I can’t wait to see what Sai and Kankuro do. And more Deidara is always welcome of course. I also like how they have made this seem like an actual war. It’s not just the main characters splitting up and fighting progressively stronger minor villains in one-on-one fights until Naruto fights Madara. They actually use tactics.
omg FIRST!!!
Don’t ya hate how you end up looking kinda foolish to claim “first” when you aren’t.
Is that a question or a statement.
omg i swear i was first!!!
srsly!!!! somehow after i commented he pops up on top of me :O!!!
must be some kind of hax :O!!!!!!!!! H4XZ0RZZZZZZ!!!!!!!!!!!!
🙂
I hope Hinata, Rock Lee, and zombie Haku/Zabuza get good scenes. They’re not coming up any time soon though.
I’m also kind of interested in getting more backstory out of some of the other zombies, like the dead kages and Tsunade’s man.
I also liked this chapter, sets up the seriousness of the conflict and I’m dying to see some sword fighting (besides Sasuke’s boring stuff) ever since that Konoha guy way back in the chunin exam arc got his ass handed to him after only using one sword technique.
I really hope that this doesn’t turn into Naruto’s version of the Hueco Mundo arc, where the fights last way too long and there is zero storyline progression for like a year. That said, I’m not going to get my hopes up and compare it to the Marineford arc from One Piece, which was extremely well done.
And I still can’t buy into this zombie army. Kabuto and Orochimaru were just grave robbing thousands of ninjas and storing them in a freezer all of this time? Blegh. This just seems like a plot device to tag on at least another year to the manga’s run.
The bulk of the army are zetsu clones, not zombies, they’re supposedly just made of chakra and wood/earth.
The zombies are made using the souls of the resurrected ninja but the body can be from anyone, although maybe they still had to get a sample or something of the originals remains, they never explained how they get a hold of the soul.
So there may not have been any grave robbing at all, but if there was, it would only have to have been for the famous ninja Kabuto resurrected.
Edo Tensei doesn’t require the actual person’s corpse to resurrect them. It just binds their soul to a corpse, which Orochimaru prepares human sacrifices for. As for why they look like their original selves, that shouldn’t be too hard to explain given the Henshin (transformation) technique or whatever Orochimaru used to always look like himself in any body.
I am pretty sure this is gonna be one hell of a long drawn out arc pretty similar to the Aizen Invasion arc we just ended. Best to have patience and hang in there.
If this battle is as epic they portray it to be, look forward to long series of fights.
unless they just flashforward to the last boss battle and we barely get to see the others fight.
Do I smell an anime filler arc?
This war is totally filler material. they could add years of filler just based of this one arc
Is been a while since gaara retrieval arc, I wonder if sasori still release his deadly poison technique and those 1000 puppet jutsu or whatever (lol i forgot the technique) and wow.. sai brother looks like sakura.
This chapter got me fired up.
I really hope Anko is alright. She better get out of this alive. Damn you Kabuto!!!!
looks like the Death God is going to get busy with all the soul sealings that might take place in case the alliance memebers can’t obliterate the bodies of the resurrected ninjas..xD
*cut here, cut there, swallow that soul*
Does anybody think this is going to be the final arc of Naruto? The giant war happens, Akatsuki gets destroyed. Naruto becomes the hokage, yadda yadda yadda
i still dont see why they didn’t make naruto hokage after he saved the village from Pain.
wtf, the whole village was useless ( even tsunade)
I certainly hope that this is the last arc of this manga.
If it goes any longer kishi will ruin whatever characters he did not ruin yet (Sakura is already at the point when seeing her in a panel, makes you want to punch her. Naruto already has nothing that made him Naruto and Sasuke is….let’s not start on that ….thing)
i kinda miss the days of naruto’s quest to be save sasuke and become hokage!
the story feels plotless now…
I’m wondering if this is sarcasm or not…
The big mistake Bleach made was focusing on fairly uninteresting 1 on 1 fights for the entirety of its war arc. I’m hoping Kishimoto is smart enough to do something more akin to One Piece’s war arc, but with more casualties.
I think we’re missing the fact that
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Well if she is dead what do we lose here. I mean Kishi just doesn’t use or paint female ninjas in a good light. So many characters with potential all get backup roles or no roles at all. I don’t remember Anko besides the forest of death which was years ago.
after years of naruto, i feel like i no longer able to be excited of this latest chapter anymore, the only manga that still interest me is one piece and it on haitus(haiz)
One Piece is not on hiatus anymore. The hiatus was for 4 weeks back in September, but is now back on. I like it a lot too 🙂
Yeah, considering the scale of the war, I should be looking forward to new chapters but the excitement has dulled away slowly over the years. Same can be said for Bleach. I probably anticipate Negima the most nowadays. And to think that it started as a slice of life/comedy manga. Ken Akamatsu really is a genius.
Well, I’m in vacation mode atm and I decided to start One Piece (anime first ofc). Currently up to ep 70 🙂 Soon I can finally say that I’m familiar with the “big 3”.
Do you think Kishimoto is going to pull a J.K.Rowling and have all the characters start dropping like flies as the series pulls to a finish?
honestly….Naruto is becoming more and more lame.
so the bad guys pulled off a plan and took out some of the ninja alliance. Would that really matter if the ninja alliance has a couple thousands of replacements. The zombies cant go on forever like this, pulling out a plan taking 3 4 men and then repeat for another dozen chapters of this.
Is it me me or does kabuto’s cloak seems like the one medusa wears in Soul Eater
Everyone seems a bit pessimistic heading into a fighting arc, but I’ll give Kishimoto credit when it comes to making interesting ninja battles. With war we’ll see a lot of characters blossom on the battlefield. Personally i blame Bleach for doing things the wrong way, focusing on one person at a time instead of groups of characters, wars are won with speed and momentum, so I’m excited to see how this arc plays out.
edo tensei, doesn’t make zombies, it uses a living sacrifices body, and covers it with dirt and rubble to form it in the appearance of the “reborn” person and binds the soul to that “body”, if they were zombies, they’d be that bodies corpse, for example Deidara was brought back despite his self destruction.
Everyone says it will be long and drawn out but it’s not like that is a bad thing if the action actually turns out good. Naruto has been notorious for having long breaks in action, but once it starts it never fails right. Now we have a big effin war with a load of ninjas and a few samurai. The only thing I really don’t care for is reviving all those unnecessary ninjas like Sai’s brother, Tsunade’s boyfriend and very minor characters that only got mentioned to give character deep to the mainstream cast. I do like that the previous Kages, and Jinchuurikis have been brought back. You gotta wonder how did Orochi-Kabuto get the means to summon all these people. Doesn’t he need a part of their body. I’m pretty sure he couldn’t have gained access to Asuma (buried recently in Konoha) or Jiraiya (last fought Pein and suck to the bottom or the ocean)
this chapter was great, i cant wait to see what happens next week 😀