Naruto Shippuuden Ep072

Oh hooray, back to the manga storyline! Certainly the series will pick up again and improve dramatically now that the main storyline can progress, right? RIGHT??

Every good episode starts with a funeral!

Naturally the only time ninjas all wear black in Naruto is when there's a funeral. Considering their line of work, there are probably a lot of funerals. I bet they'd save some time if they just always wore black. What a novel concept, ninjas wearing black!

Paperwork, a Hokage's worst nightmare!

Apparently Tsunade's responsibilities as Hokage involve rapidly stamping hundreds of pieces of paper without reading what's on them? No wonder the village elders are always telling her she's terrible at running the village! She's approving every request put forth to her without any review! Gods, just let Shizune do the paperwork, it's not like she does anything other than look worried and upset all the time.

Back when I was a young genin, we never had any of this jinchurrikoo nonsense!

Kakashi and Azuma have their "we're gonna lay down and die for the new generation" speech. Azuma's already dead in the manga, how long until Kakashi bites it, I wonder? The way he prattles on about how much better Naruto is than him makes his death seem all but inevitable!

Now, maybe it's just me, but all these 'sensei' characters like Kakashi, Iruka, Asuma, and such don't really seem THAT OLD! They look like they're all between 20 and 30!! I'M BETWEEN 20 and 30!! I sure as hell don't feel that old, and I don't feel I'm totally inferior to all the teens out there who are ten years younger than me. I guess they all just have self esteem issues or something.

"Dur, I likes killin' da peoples!"

So we've got some Akatsuki members chasing down a Jinchurriki. Admittedly these guys are badass in the manga, but I think something about the show's bad animation takes off a lot of their edge. Instead, they mostly just seem whiney and annoying (I can relate). And Hidan just won't shut up about how much he loves killing people! Literally every line out of his mouth the whole episode directly relates to his desire to kill. Unintentionally, this makes him hilariously dumb sounding.

"I'm not a strong enough! I need an attack that can kill even less people than Rasengan,
which hasn't killed anyone at all."

Naruto is apparently still too weak, despite having won every fight he's been in since the chunin exams AND not killing any of his opponents in the process (other than that monster guy in the second movie, but are the movies even canon?). So how does he wish to counter this supposed weakness of his? By developing a power that won't hurt anyone! Yeah, because Rasengan is just TOO LETHAL. Stop killing all those people with Rasengan, Naruto! You're turning this show into a blood bath! Honestly, you'd think every battle he fought didn't end with a punch in the face and a new friend.

Eat it, Naruto. Eat it all up.

Oh, but I forgot the highlight of the episode! naruto has a wet dream and humps a pillow right in front of Sakura and Sai! You have to see it to BELIEVE IT!

Naruto Shippuuden Ep071

Hey! After many hours/days/years of ranting about Naruto to all my friends (or nearby people caught in the crossfire), I now have a blog where anyone can read all my naruto related ravings! Obviously the show's kind of far along at this point (gods, how long has this series been going?), but I'll just jump into it as if I've been doing this all along, since, in a way, I have...

So the series is just wrapping up yet ANOTHER wonderful filler arc! Not sure exactly why they're still so insistent on filler since the anime's about three years worth of material behind the actual manga, but hey, that's cool, everyone loves a good filler arc! Too bad good filler arcs don't exist. I have my suspicions that japanese anime writers just have this 'Big Book of Filler Plots' that they open whenever they need an inconsequential arc to take up time while the manga finishes up a more relevant plotline.

As far as the Naruto series is concerned, though, there's mostly just ONE type of filler arc, and that's basically the Gaara storyline retooled with a different, less awesome character. This filler's pick is the ever so creatively named Sora! Who is Sora? Some kid who was magically infused with Kyuubi chakra from way back when the Kyuubi attacked Konoha! How did this happen? Well, some bad guy named Kazuma magically put the evil chakra in his child so the child would grow up to DESTROY KONOHA! I'm not really certain what Kazuma would've done if the Kyuubi had run amok and ended up destroying the whole Fire Country, his homeland, but, hey, as far as I can tell Kazuma was pretty much just nuts anyway so he probably didn’t even give a damn.

Anyway, as things often go with this particular storyline, Sora of the Fire Country is looked down upon by his peers because he’s a monster and he has no friends so on and so forth. So naturally Naruto comes along, fights Sora a couple times, and decides they’re friends. They go back to Konoha, Kazuma shows up, Naruto kills a floating wig (as in a hair piece with glowing eyes), Konoha’s overrun by ninjas zombies, and Sora turns into the Kyuubi. After all other threats to Konoha are taken care of, Naruto gets down to business ending this filler arc as quickly and painlessly as possible by punching Sora in the face and reminding him they’re good buddies!

You and me both Kazuma. Seriously, this was almost the most unintentionally hilarious filler arc yet!

Punched...IN DA FACE! What better reminder that you're friends?

Naruto is BURNT FACE MAN! Could he look any angrier about being friends with Sora? Maybe if he were crying tears of blood...

And goodbye forever! Sora was so desperate to get out of this series he didn't even wait around to finish healing. But, you know, it's cool. He only had, like, eighth degree burns over his entire body is all.

Asuma has self esteem issues. In fact, he goes on to compare himself to a pawn in a shougi board, and then hints that Naruto's the King. NARUTO!! The only time he's competent at all is when he goes into "Generic Selfless Hero" mode, at which point he's hardly even recognizeable as himself! All other time's he's just a bumbling idiot.

Well, if there's one good thing that came out of this filler arc, it's that it signals the series' return to the manga storyline, hoorah! Not that the manga storyline is much better (but at least the plot progresses!).

Goodbye, Sora! We'll miss you, assuming we haven't completely forgotten about you by the next episode!