Last week's chapter ended with a cliffhanger and I am glad I was able to correctly guess the solution to the problem, but before I continue gloating lets start from the beginning.
I had a feeling this Yin and Yang symbol would come up eventually, its really quite nice how Kishi uses Naruto and Minato as the "White Dot" in the Yin symbol and Dark Kurama's hand as the Black Dot in the yang symbol. The foxes talk to each other and its interesting to note how Yin Kurama says they were originally one entitiy, it makes me very curious how they will act once they combine together again.
In chapter 641 we had Shikimaru tell us how even a little bit of power can change the tide of this war. After seeing how incredibly powerful Obito and the former Hokages are, what brilliant plan has Shikimaru come up with? Why has he kept the Alliance so close to the fight instead of running? What will he do now?
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| Impressive performance so far... |
I loved seeing Naruto telling Sasuke to be quiet and let him focus, now that I think of it though Sasuke hasn't been too effective in this fight, I have a feeling he'd be a better match against Madara since he hasn't shown any senjutsu so far to damage Obito with.
I like serious Naruto, reminds me of the same guy we saw bring down Pain and not the idiot that Kishi sometimes makes him out to be. Plus charging the entire Alliance with Chakra is quite badass.
Juugo followed Sasuke unlike the rest of the team that went with Orochimaru and we have seen Juugo in quite a few panels commenting on the fight or on Sasuke. Considering that his Cursed seal is a form of Natural energy, I get the feeling Juugo might be a big factor in bringing down Obito later.
Obito detonates a huge amount of chakra, wow we haven't seen that before have we?
If there's one thing I learned from this arc of Naruto, its that the bigger the explosion, the less damage it does, consider what killed Neji, a stick. Yet here we got nuclear attacks every 2 chapters and nobody has been hurt yet ( well bar the Alliance HQ but still...)
Obito surveys the situation and finds out nobody has been hurt by his 4 gigantic Bijuu bombs, I can honestly understand his frustrations since it seems that Plot-no-jutsu is just too strong now even for him. Still it was an interesting tactic to use a massive Thunder God Jutsu like that but how much Chakra will that cost Naruto? and if the Alliance wasn't around he would have been able to use all that energy to wound Obito instead.
I love Tobirama's sense of humor, especially considering how serious he was in the past.
The chapter ends with an emotional high by having Minato wish that he could have talked more to Naruto, but the fist bump currently going on between those two is enough for them to share all the feelings they have. Bumping fists has been quite a theme actually, in part 1 Sasuke says all it takes for two strong ninjas to understand each other is a single punch, while Bee uses his fist bump with friends and people he trusts.
Predictions
Lets see what predictions have I not made so far?
The problem with making predictions is often times you end up repeating them since you expect something to happen it just hasn't happened yet so it would be annoying to mention every prediction every chapter.
Still this chapter I think points to two things for me. The first is that the Alliance will do something useful in the end, Kishi has made them so useless so far that in the end they will do something badass to redeem themselves from being saved 5 times.
And secondly Juugo is important to the story somehow, Probably due to his cursed seal somehow. Considering that the cursed seal is made of natural energy I think that Juugo will give every member of the alliance a small part of the Cursed seal, allowing all of them to use Natural energy and damage Obito.
Rating
I enjoy Naruto a lot but really a lot of these chapters feel very much the same to each other, its all Obito does an attack, some big save happens, everyone is excited, rinse and repeat.
Still I like version 12 of that scenario and give this chapter a 3.5 out of 5 thanks to Minato's pride in Naruto and Tobirama's humor.
I enjoyed this chapter...to a certain extent lol. I don't know why but I loved when Sasuke actually said he'd save Juugo and the "Loser", and I think it was some subtle character development for the Uchiha. Some alright moments...but you hit on the head with rinse and repeat. It's getting stale.
ReplyDeleteI predict a random projectile from Madara(but that at first time nobody will know from what came) transform Sasuke and Juugo in a bloody mess. Naruto will enter in a fit of rage and the Five kages will arrive to a rematch against Madara, who will be revealed to have sealed Hashirama with the Totsuka Sword. Madara will make a sarcastic remark about how they are still weak as before, but Tsunade will proclaim that "we are much more now" with the Alliance standing behind them.
ReplyDeleteI'm not really sure it will go like that. I imagine a rematch between the kages but Sasuke dying doesn't seem too likely to me somehow.
DeleteStill speculating is fun and part of what makes me enjoy a series is listening to what people think.
To me, Sasuke is redundant now. What's the fun in a fight between him and Naruto if isn't about the massacre of the Uchiha clan? Blah, and if I hear one more word about Itachi being awesome I think I'm going mad. If Sasuke survives, I already can see him saying this at the finale.
ReplyDeleteActually I believe the whole Alliance had to defeat Madara because he can't stop talking about how everyone is like ants to him. Seems like he have forgotten that much little beings working together can defeat a bigger being. It's like the textbook example of how teamwork works.
Sasuke sadly can't be redundant, even though I agree with you that he Shouldn't really be a factor this point of the story.
DeleteI disagree with your Alliance theory in that it Will happen but it really shouldn't, its like they have to be saved 5 times just so they can contribute one time to the fight. I don't really think they are worth keeping around :/
But you the team work thing reminds me of how Darui's team defeated the Gold and Silver brothers, might happen again soon.