Naruto, I'll always love you. I'm not ashamed to admit it. Much in the same way Dragonball Z will forever have a place in the disposable-fun-loving part of my heart, you do, and will, too. With that in mind, let's go back a few volumes from the current scanslated efforts and consider the events leading up to the time skip, reviewing Viz's uber speedy release/catch-up of volumes 25 - 27.
These three volumes can be summarised by The Big One, its aftermath and Kakashi. Naruto and Sasuke finally have the ruck that's been dreamt of, almost-happened and suggested into oblivion since the last, slightly less satisfying fight from days of yore. As the manga makes explicit, there's no Sakura to limply stand between them and no Kakashi to put an abrupt stop to the proceedings. Just one arrogant ladyboy with superpower affections and one tunnel-visioned idiot with a naive grasp on human emotion. And the fight is one of the least creative Kishimoto has ever produced. The setting is utterly fantastic; the drama is as tense and emotional as it should be . . . but ultimately it's just an abbreviated (compared to DBZ) power-up battle between two of the manga's protagonists. No one is going to die; I knew this even when I first read it. The fight is purely a representation of the two forking paths of Sasuke and Naruto, and so lacks all the tactical excitement and enjoyable twists of standard Naruto battles. They pull out their respective signature moves, clash a couple of times with lots of dramatic camera angles underwater etc. and that's about it.
It's difficult to truly criticise, however. You flick through it all in a twenty-minute sitting and have decent sense of accomplishment by the end, and most importantly it serves its purpose perfectly. The real meat of the trio comes from the latter two-thirds of volume 27, specifically Kakashi Gaiden, or Kakashi Chronicles as Viz slightly over-states in its translation. This collection of chapters represents the end of Kishimoto's previous style by being a concentrated homage to it; everything about early Naruto is here and carried out with pitch-perfect brilliance, and all in Kishimoto's 'new' art style (which I still can't get over how much I love). Not only do we get unadulterated Kakashi, whose amiability was solely lacking in his younger years (though being no less the badass), but we also receive first-hand experience of the Fourth Hokage, learn more about Konoha's history and get preliminary Uchiha insight. For a series of chapters that was meant simply to bridge the gap Kakashi Gaiden/Chronicles is one of the biggest highlights of the whole series. Be that due to Kakashi's bottomless charm or Kishimoto's perfection of his chosen formula, I don't know, but it kind of sucks we never get the same experience again after its conclusion.
Right around this time in any of my old skool Naruto reviews I write the obligatory lament paragraph explaining how the tardy official English release reminds us of how good Naruto once was. But that's rubbish; bar a few housekeeping volumes in Part II Naruto has always been a compulsive, enjoyable read. Its focus just shifted from Harry Potter-like school shenanigans to the traditional Destroy The Evil Organisation Bent on Social Destruction. And these three volumes officially herald this change in direction (made official by Part II's subsequent two and a half year time skip).
Granted, the latter incarnation has proved to be nowhere near as charming or inventive as the first, but Naruto has an undeniable sense of identity and, dare I say, uniqueness that pulls it above being a trope-ridden, by the numbers drudge. Both those elements are painfully apparent in the newer Naruto chapters; I'm not going to argue against the claims that the manga has lost a lot of the personality that made it stand out so much in the beginning and turned into a drawn-out franchise. But when has Jump manga ever been about artistic integrity? In that anthology series are chosen and syndicated based solely on their franchise potential -- how much merchandise it can spawn and how well it will translate into an anime. Naruto's dramatic change in intention is simply the act of a long-running manga realising it's time to step-up and actively pursue the world domination ambitions it had from the very start. Sacrifices have to be made, I guess.
But still, I may well rarely feel the sense of attachment or love I once did for these characters, but never have I been bored by reading Naruto. I just wonder how the hell Viz are going to package Part II. If they add a bloody Z to the title then I will officially boycott them for life.
Well, you can't really fault the Naruto manga for not doing much. Since I last blogged the weekly chapters a whole barrage of events have happened. Needless, sympathy-baiting deaths (sniff, but also so bloody cheesy); rather exciting extended battles; tedious training sequences; the removal/death of tired arch-villains (but is he really dead, we ask); the seeming usurpation of our protagonist for some over-powered pretty boy and his mates (the manga has been officially retitled Sasuke over the past few weeks). When listed and quantified Naruto seems to be going as strong as ever.
Asuma and chums continue to face-off against Hidan, completely perplexed by his invulnerability. The usual good-guy mission statement occurs and Asuma enquires about the whereabouts of Hidan's partner. Queue Kakuzu's dramatic entrance, appearing suddenly behind Shikamaru and going in for the kill. Shikamaru evades, but consequently interrupts his Kagenui jutsu and Hidan exclaims excitedly. Asuma, shielding Shikamaru with his knives drawn, quickly orders Kotetsu and Izumo to back away and they do so, leaving the two blades still impaling a volatile Hidan. Drawing his weapon, Hidan demands that Kakuzu doesn't interfere and proceeds to draw out a religious symbol on the floor with his blood. An anxious Asuma quickly formulates a full-on attack plan and Shikamaru warns that it's too risky, and very much unlike Asuma. Pulling a face that unnerves Shikamaru all the more, Asuma demands that there's no other choice. Izumo suggests a retreat in order to formulate a better strategy of attack and Asuma explains that this kind of foe wouldn't allow such to happen without major upset. Hidan removes the two blades from his sides and, with Shikamaru at the ready, Asuma launches his attack. After some rather nifty acrobatics, avoiding the Kagenui, Hidan throws one of the blades at Asuma and he cuts it in two with his knives. This is rapidly followed by Hidan's rope weapon, which Asuma mostly deflects except for a small cut on his right cheek. Trying a different approach, Asuma uses an explosive fire jutsu. Landing back in his religious symbol, Hidan licks the blood from his weapon causing his hand (and body) to turn black with white markings reflecting his bone structure. The fire jutsu hits with full effect and it seems only to burn away part of Hidan's cloak, while causing serious injury to most of Asuma's right side. Asuma is completely bewildered by how his attack was reflected in such a manner and Hidan is fully revealed with his skin having transformed into some kind of skeletal armour. He explains that his ritual will now begin and they will both share some exquisite pain together.
Kakashi finally reveals the plan to achieve his goal of rapid training Naruto. He explains that because shadow clones are actual physical entities of the user, they have the ability to act independently and bring back whatever they've learnt to the original once the jutsu has been released. Proving that it should, in fact, be a 'D' on his head-guard, Naruto still doesn't quite understand. Kakashi demonstrates with a simple game of rocks-paper-scissors. After creating a shadow clone of themselves, Kakashi and Naruto run off into the forest together and do the deed while the originals look on. They release the jutsu, Kakashi asks what they were doing and Naruto, surprised, confirms they were playing a game. Sadly, poor Nar doesn't quite understand how this translates into beneficial training and Kakashi explains further. Due to the capability of relying information from the clone to the original, and Naruto's immense stamina that can produce a thousand clones, the time taken to train will be massively reduced - from twenty years to just a week, in fact. Kakashi reveals this is possible for Naruto and not himself because Naruto's chakra is twice as much as his own. And if Yamato can control the Nine-tails it could be over a hundred times more. Enter our lovely assistant Yamato. Kakashi continues the lecture by describing the five basic types of chakra: wind, water, fire, earth and lightning. Yamato adds that every person's chakra leans to a particular element and Naruto reviews Sasuke's affinity with both fire and lightning. Naruto's inclination is still unknown and Kakashi proposes a test, using a special kind of paper taken from the bark of a tree fed and nurtured by chakra for a prolonged time. When chakra is channelled with it in-hand, the paper reacts in a appropriate fashion (bursts into flames, turns into water etc) depending on the person's affinity. Naruto takes the paper and, after a dramatic pause, reveals that the paper has split in two. He's all about the wind.
