Wednesday 6 July 2011

Naruto 546 Review

Hello and welcome to my review for the latest chapter for Naruto, adequately named "Clash of the Old and New Kage".

The chapter starts off differently from the last few weeks, instead of focusing on a main character, this week we start of by watching two members of the alliance fighting off one of Kabuto's edo tensei bodies.

The scene shows us how ninjas from different villages are working together, sharing intel on their former villagers and trying to save each other's lives, its not a huge thing, but its nice to see the Shinobi alliance letting go of its former ties and working as one true unit.


Toroi, from the Hidden Cloud can apparently use magnetic release, the same ability that the third Kazekage had, before he was killed and Sasori then was able to use magnet release, unlike the third though, this guy doesnt use magnetic sand but infuses his shurikens with his Chakra, and anything they hit will be under his control.

Its kinda like Pein's gravity ability, the only difference is Pein could do this anytime, while Toroi must have made previous contact with the enemy, either through touching them or through his shurikens.

Unfortunately, our poor Sand Shinobi doesn't dodge the attacks but blocks them instead, getting some of Toroi's chakra on him, and Toroi's favorite way to kill seems to be to get the ninja and his shuriken to collide with each other, one of the coolest ways to kill anyone, Ever!.

But before we get to witness this awesome decapitation, who decides to show up?

If you guessed Chuck Norris, you were almost right, but Naruto shows up instead in the nick of time to save them, he is picking up Kakashi's ability to show up and save people, but Kakashi still does it better.

Kabuto reacts to Naruto showing up ( at least that's what is implied) he seems genuinely surprised by his appearance.

However, what I want to know is did Kabuto see Naruto through his Edo Tensei? Or did he just notice one of his bodies suddenly die? if Kabuto is somehow linked to his summons then Edo Tensei seems very similar to the Paths of Pain, as both require a dead body and both are controlled by the user.

Back to the battlefield we see everyone got out of there alive, and the two Shinobi were part of F's group, who were all White Zetsu clones, seems like those two just escaped Zetsu and survived a fight with Kabuto's summon, how badass can two fodder nins be?

The scene shifts to Gaara and Onoki, a fight I think everyone has been looking forward to, apparently both of them have been retreating from a fight with 4 previous Kages, a Kage from each village except Konoha until they can retreat no more, they decide to start off by measuring the Kage's reaction to long range attacks, A valid tactic since both Gaara and Onoki have shown themselves to be long range fighters in the past, with Temari in their group I assume their whole squadron is skilled at long range combat.


One thing that has been shown by every Kage, is love for their village, and the dead Kages are no different, in the above picture all of them show that they do not enjoy the idea of killing their own villagers, but Raikage brings up another theme of Naruto, that the new generation will surpass the old one, and he wishes that the Ninjas he fights will be strong enough to defeat them, something the dead Kazekage agrees to.


Gaara starts the attack, showing off a massive technique, we haven't seen Gaara use something like this since his fight with Deidera, so while he may have lost the One-Tail, he clearly hasn't lost any offensive ability.

The only one of the Kages to react to this is Gaara's dad, he assumes this is the ability of Shikaku from his previous battles with it, whether these fights were when it was sealed into Gaara or before that we don't know, but he counters it effectively with his own style of Magnetic Release.


In one chapter, Magnetic Release went from being an ability that Akatsuki killed for, to something two villages had, and that's just the ones we know about, Hopefully this ability wont become spammed like the Sharingan is.

After the failed assault, Gaara and Onoki hit the Kages from above, they use an interesting strategy of distracting them with the sand from below so Onoki can use dust release and crush them from above, its solid teamwork to be honest, too bad Mu was not caught by the sand and is capable of counter-attacking Onoki.


It seems both Onoki and Mu are equal in power, so the blast just destroys the battlefield, but both sides escape unscathed, after this attack both Onoki and the 4th Kazekage comment on their foe's powers, Onoki by discovering that Mu's powers have not been reduced at all by Edo Tensei, and the 4th by noticing how much Gaara has improved since he died.


The final panel of this chapter is the living Kages flying over the dead ones, perhaps signaling how the new generation will soar over the previous one?

The 4th asks Gaara where Shikaku is and Gaara tell's him he is no longer the Jinchuriki he created, its a fitting cliffhanger and I hope the next chapter will focus a lot on their relationship.

Comments


I enjoyed this chapter, The fight between Gaara and his dad was brought up the moment we saw him as a zombie and so far it has not disappointed, both are sand users and so far it seems the 4th is stronger so it will be interesting to see how Gaara pulls of a win in this situation, that and the extra emotional layer should add up to an exciting fight.

Onoki's fight with his previous teacher should also be quite interesting, so far the old generation being surpassed by the new has been a repeated theme, yet Mu looks much younger then Onoki, so it will be funny if an old man defeats a much younger one and then talks about the new surpassing the old.

The art this week was splendid, yet no real panel stood out to me as being more amazing then the others, they were all very solid and very good, with perhaps Gaara's massive sand attack being the best picture this chapter.

Not really much to say here, it seems this chapter is a set-up for next where, where we will see the real fight starts.
Predictions?

Mu and the 4th will tell the other Kages to not interfere, it will be Gaara vs his dad and Onoki vs Mu, both will have flashbacks between them, probably to the time they were training together, I expect Gaara's figh to start first in the next chapter with Onoki being put on hold till their fight ends,.

And that's it for this review, hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it, till next week.

1 comment :

  1. I expect a LOT of flashbacks next week. That's the way Naruto works.

    By the way, you're not annoyed that a newly introduced character with an awesome power just got died quickly as it was introduced? Talk about anti-climatic...

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