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Here's another early edition of my weekly reviews of Naruto chapters. Yep, only one day after the chapter hit the internet...! Probably would've even been sooner if I hadn't had to deal with driving with a trailer yesterday. Also, I wanted to add some images with my comments for your convenience.
Please remember that all my old reviews are now in this forum: here. Hope you enjoy and feel free to make a few comments of your own if you have the time.
1. Something's Missing... Oh! Yeah, yeah. No cover this week, but that means an extra page of actual story, right? So I'm sure nobody is going to complain ...right? ... Okay, yeah, except maybe all you colorists. Oh, yep, and I better not forget all of the hungry Narutards (including myself) that admire your work, and that makes up probably at least 85% of all the registered members here at this forum. Say, that's quite a lot of people who probably wanted a cover! But for the sake of discussion, let's forget for a sec that anything will be colored (and probably wonderfully so; if you haven't seen Zarosaki's current work, Dynamic Dragon's colorings, and Vhea's covers, I highly recommend checking them all out), would ANYBODY care too much about the lack of a cover? When you initially opened the folder to read the chapter, did you feel a slight disappointment that the chapter started right away with Kakashi talking to Naruto? Or perhaps, because you've been waiting so long to find out how the heck Kakashi was intending to train Naruto, maybe not at all? Hmm. In my own case, alright, I'll admit to being initially extremely disappointed when I saw that there wasn't a cover. Then I felt more than a bit silly not too long after, after all, it just means more story! Was I just being irrational?
If you would like to vote about your feelings on the matter, I've set up a poll on this topic, so enjoy.
Okay, moving on to the story now...
2. Yep, the MS... C? Waitaminute, Mass Shadow Clones!? Yes! After all these theories of Kakashi employing his Mangekyou Sharingan in order to train Naruto, which would have dismayed me personally, the training method ends up being almost completely in Naruto's hands, not his mentor's. And even better, with the power of his own favorite jutsu. So, in short, Kishimoto escapes the risk of being called unoriginal, and I also think this time he surprised nearly all his readers by not taking the MS route. Good for him.
The reason, of course, that I disliked the concept of the Mangekyou Sharingan creating a virtual "time-stop training ground" for Naruto was that it would have been WAY too trite in that it was superficially similar to how Son Goku and Gohan went about their training in Dragonballz. But this, the employment of the Tajū Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Multiple Shadow Clone Technique) in the training, has more of a "Naruto" feeling and is much more unique. It also allows Naruto to go "full circle," allowing him to enjoy additional benefits and advantages of an extraordinary jutsu he's had since the very first chapter. Yay.
Wonder if this was the reason Kishimoto wanted to tease his readers for so long, because he wanted to make them all think deeply on it and start to suspect it was the MS, making the surprise even bigger in the end. Maybe he was trying to do a late April's Fool joke on us all. He is a tricky devil, after all...
3. Reconnaissance Man. I think we've all suspected it for a while now, ever since one of Naruto's bunshins fell to his knees in agony after the original had Kyuubified to Two-Tails, a reaction that alarmed Kakashi enough to pull out the ol' trusty Jiraiya-recommended Chakra-Suppressing "condom...!" From that one scene, we could already guess that the clones possessed an emotional resonance of sorts to Naruto. And now we learn that the real McCoy, or McFox if you will, can also absorb all their memories and experiences when they vanish. Not to mention that if Yamato's apparent psychic link with his clone tailing Orochimaru was anything to be judged by, Naruto may someday have the capability of being able to communicate telepathically with all his clones at some point. Intriguing! But seems as though he's been in the dark about all this for quite a while...
Still, I don't think you can really blame the overly-hyperactive teen for not knowing. Naruto's always been one to work closely together with his clones, and he also tends to make so many that sometimes there's actually not enough space for all of them to fight in any given battle. Then there's the part where they were usually all working towards the same goal - defeating the current opponent, which obviously made for similar experiences that were probably merged into one cohesive memory when it was all said and done. Furthermore, the original Naruto was always somewhere nearby, either watching or participating, and his dominant perspective most likely took precedence over the different ones that appeared in his mind when the clones were dispelled. For somebody not exactly known for his intelligence, it kinda makes sense.
Sure, there's been times where one of Naruto's bunshins has to wander off from the rest of the flock, but it didn't happen often from what we saw, and again, Naruto probably just never stopped to think about why he had two different memories of doing two different things at the same time - you could always blame it on his power of fierce concentration on accomplishing his goals. He didn't typically count on his clones to collect information for him - the closest was when he was searching for Sasuke in the halls of Orochimaru's lair. With more experience using his clones not just for fighting but rather searching, I'm sure he would have come to realize it eventually.
Still, I must say, it's amazing how much potential the Kage Bunshin no Jutsu gives Naruto in order to be one of the most astonishing reconnaissance scouts in Konohagakure. Even Neji may not have as much potential with his "All-Seeing Eye" - he can't find every trap in the area, for instance, because not all of them are so easily seen and can only be discovered by actually triggering them (ie. the Akatsuki's Clone traps). Compare that to how, with enough chakra, Naruto and his bunshins could easily explore and cover every inch of a territory in an instant and not worry so much about the consequences. Woo...!
EDIT: Jabbament corrected me that Yamato was in fact talking via a radio transmitter to his Moku bunshin, so please discount what I said about the possibility of a telepathic link. In a way, I'm kind of glad, because it also means Naruto has more of an excuse not to have known the "recall" ability he has with his clones.
4. Luck of the Kyuubi...? Appropriate that Naruto should have the Devil's own luck what with the evil nine-tailed bijuu inside him. We've already seen that he had a talent for the lottery in chapter 156 when he was just beginning the third step of his Rasengan training with Jiraiya's guidance. And now we see his bunshin defeating Kakashi's bunshin in a match of Rock, Paper, Scissors, which reminded me of that. Naruto's the reverse Tsunade, I guess, when it comes to luck.
5. Patience's the Key. It's already been well-established that it makes Kakashi's hair stand on end to have a pupil as slow-learning as Naruto. And now, here we see him wondering, "Jiraiya-sama, how the hell did you ever teach this kid a jutsu like the Rasengan?" Heh, now THAT brings some memories back. Remember, guys, when Asuma and Kurenai were both awed by Naruto's growth in the Chuunin Exams back in chapter 76? As you can see, they were thinking such things as "This is that loser, Naruto?" and "What did Kakashi do?" Déjà vu!
Back then, though, I don't think Kakashi really should have been credited at all for Naruto's growth, as much as Naruto's innate talent for improvisement just had been underestimated by everybody. However, Jiraiya, being in Naruto's shoes once before, knew the right teaching method with Naruto, and that was, simply, patience. And that's what every great sensei, even in real life, needs to possess: a willingness to stay by their student while they absorb information, even if it takes days. And Kakashi's now having to learn it as well. But I guess it's not so easy being such a genius when it comes to training kids like Naruto, eh... but at least Kakashi wasn't as hot-blooded as he used to be before Obito died, huh!
Still, Jiraiya would often still vent about what an idiot Naruto was to his face when they were training together, so he was definitely frustrated at times as well. Luckily Naruto's known for his stubbornness, though, so maybe Kakashi should allow himself to mumble some obvious insults towards Naruto's way instead of keeping it all on the inside, just to get it out of his system. But I guess maybe he's too reserved for that sort of thing... guess we'll find out!
6. The Calm Before the Storm...! Okay, when Kakashi finally got it into Naruto's head that he would have to train with one thousand duplicates of himself at all times, I couldn't help but get a little excited to see the exercise start in full effect. In fact, everything seems to hint at some awesome, eye-opening Kishimoto artwork being on the way for our enjoyment. Hey, think about it for a second - this chapter wasn't very artistically involved, but it was dialogue-heavy, so didn't require much in the way of eye-opening visual masterpieces. This might mean that Kishimoto and his assistants were giving themselves a little time in order to finish illustrating some heavily involved art much like the one from the end of Chapter 202 (one of my personal favorite double spreads) for upcoming chapters:
Now imagine this - for the bulk of Naruto's training, we'll be seeing this sort of thing constantly, perhaps even with clones of Kakashi and Yamato's own joining in, while all the originals sit somewhere nearby watching everything going on. Perhaps they'll even go as far as disguise some of the clones as former enemies (maybe we'll see the return of Zabuza in a sense?) just to make it seem more intimidating a training exercise and to get the adrenaline running. Even the idea of a "Naruto Mock War" is fun to contemplate. Anyway, that's just my own imagination talking, but that's what I'd like to see coming in future chapters. Would be exciting and impressive, I bet.
7. Forbidden for a Reason. HisshouBuraiken, one of our translators here, commented along with his translation that "Wow, now we finally get why Kage Bunshin was labelled a forbidden jutsu... it's sick!"
True, but it wasn't because of its training potential, I have a feeling. Yes, Kakashi had just said, "With a thousand clones, something that would normally take you twenty years would take a week," which was what had spurred HisshouBuraiken to say that. But in my opinion, it's just that Naruto is the only one living in the entire village of Konohagakure whose original body won't be sucked completely dry from heavy usage of Kage Bunshin. In fact, Kakashi here clearly says that he's never been able to train that way, because he only has half of Naruto's "default" chakra. And that's not even counting the "Kyuubi chakra" within Naruto, which here we learn that with a little help, could give him 100 times as much power. I understand more than ever now why Kage Bunshin is forbidden. It could very easily kill its user once activated. It's no surprise at all to me that Naruto's the only one that can do this training.
8. The Return of Yamato...! Considering that Yamato had impressed me so much in the last storyarc, I'm glad to see him come back and participating in Naruto's training. Makes sense too, considering Yamato's the only jounin around that can help Naruto out in keeping the beast within him, although I didn't think they would have actually asked Naruto to draw power from it. Funnily enough, we've also never seen a case where a student actually has two elite teachers present at the time of his training in the series, so Naruto's golden luck surely must be at work again.
I'm also hopeful to see some more dialogue between Yamato and Kakashi to get a sense of how they must have gotten along with each other while they were on the same team in the ANBU. Yamato seems to have a great deal of respect for Kakashi, but in doing so he seems amazingly humble, because he seems capable of being just as great a shinobi himself. There's a story somewhere here, I have a feeling... and I don't think it's just a matter of Kakashi probably saving Yamato's life at some point, because Yamato's probably done the same for Kakashi. It's probably another Obito-Kakashi deal, where the two came to an understanding about each other, or at least Yamato did. The fun's all in finding out, though...
9. What's So Advanced About That? This is my main issue with the chapter. We see Kakashi explaining "five basic types of chakra used for jutsu," which counts fire, wind, water, lightning, and earth, for Naruto's training. The sidetext at the beginning of chapter had promoted Kakashi's lesson as a "ultra high-level lecture," yet I can easily see this sort of speech as part of an early Academy class with Iruka being the sensei! In fact, I'd be insulted, if I was a student at the Academy and they never tested to find out what element for which my chakra would be ideal!
And now Kakashi's explaining it to Naruto now, instead of earlier when Team 7 was first formed, when Naruto could have used the knowledge and worked on that for two years? What about Sakura? Is Kakashi ever going to tell her? Yeah, okay, Tsunade's probably already taught her, but that brings us to ANOTHER thing. Out of the five elements, where does "healing" and "puppeting" count? What about Shikamaru's "shadow manipulation?" Seems like there's more to it than just five basic types of chakra, doesn't it, and this doesn't exactly count as an "advanced" lesson.
The only reasonable explanation I can think of for these particular jutsus is that these aren't shaped from any type of nature, but rather are made of pure chakra, much like how Sakura channels her chakra to create devastation with her fists, Neji guides his own to invade the opponent's body, Kidoumaru hardens his own into golden skin, arrows, and webs, Kankurou sticks his own to his puppets, and yes, Naruto's Rasengan.
I suppose I just don't understand why Kakashi didn't go into all this already when Team 7 was first formed. It definitely would have helped Naruto early on to know what type of nature his chakra had an affinity for, and seems VERY negligent of him. But better late than never, I guess... but I'm still bothered by it.
10. Naruto Is... A Male Temari!? =O We did get an interesting revelation about Naruto there at the end, though his surname (meaning "Whirlpool") sort of hinted at it already. So is anybody surprised that Naruto's chakra is wind-inclined? I know I wasn't, and I guess that's why Kishimoto didn't bother to make it a cliffhanger for once. Now all our kid needs is a couple of fans and he's well on his way to being the next Temari... minus the sexy legs.
Seriously, though, the idea of Naruto being a "Weather Wizard," is kind of interesting. Very appropriate too, considering he's such a temperental kid. Wonder if we're about to learn all sorts of wind and tempest jutsus from here on. I've also noticed that people here have been arguing about the Rasengan being a wind jutsu - but like I already said, it's most definitely a "pure chakra" type of jutsu. But even so, it's still likely that Naruto's chakra tendency probably helped out on his one-week "crash course" in being able to do a jutsu resembling a small typhoon. And it might be that Naruto is supposed to make his Rasengan an actual super-powered "Wind Jutsu" by adding the element to it in some form, though.
Sidenote: I also happened to enjoy the introduction and concept of the "paper tests." Very inventive, and fun to think about how that "special" paper would respond to all the characters in the series. I also wonder too, if the paper would even respond to Rock Lee at all. Probably not. What's Sakura's element, though? Maybe Water? Earth? Hmm. Opens a whole world of theorizing, doesn't it?
RATING: 4 out of 5 stars. Something about the lesson being described as "advanced" just annoyed me (see Comment 9), and there wasn't much going on anyway that it should deserve a five-star ranking. What saved the chapter from a three-star ranking for me was the dismissal of Kakashi's Mangekyou Sharingan having anything to do with the training, which made me happy. And I can't wait to see all the possibilities that might come out of this Kage Bunshin training exercise.
Predictions: According to the preview for the next chapter, the Akatsuki is going to make an appearance. I'm going to take a big guess here and say that it won't be Hidan and Kakuzu, because weren't they going to collect a bounty on Chiriku? May be Tobi and Deidara instead. Or even Itachi and Kisame, finally coming to make an attempt at capturing Naruto. Other than that, I predict that the training will begin, obviously, and also that Asuma will make another appearance - we'll probably hear more about his plan since the preview ended with the title "Penance," and remember, Asuma seemed to be trying to atone for his past mistakes with his father. Of course, previews generally aren't to be trusted at all, but I still can't wait anyway.
Hope you enjoyed, looking forward to hearing from you guys!
Please remember that all my old reviews are now in this forum: here. Hope you enjoy and feel free to make a few comments of your own if you have the time.
* * * Gold Knight's Ten Comments on Naruto Chapter 315: Advanced Training!! * * *
1. Something's Missing... Oh! Yeah, yeah. No cover this week, but that means an extra page of actual story, right? So I'm sure nobody is going to complain ...right? ... Okay, yeah, except maybe all you colorists. Oh, yep, and I better not forget all of the hungry Narutards (including myself) that admire your work, and that makes up probably at least 85% of all the registered members here at this forum. Say, that's quite a lot of people who probably wanted a cover! But for the sake of discussion, let's forget for a sec that anything will be colored (and probably wonderfully so; if you haven't seen Zarosaki's current work, Dynamic Dragon's colorings, and Vhea's covers, I highly recommend checking them all out), would ANYBODY care too much about the lack of a cover? When you initially opened the folder to read the chapter, did you feel a slight disappointment that the chapter started right away with Kakashi talking to Naruto? Or perhaps, because you've been waiting so long to find out how the heck Kakashi was intending to train Naruto, maybe not at all? Hmm. In my own case, alright, I'll admit to being initially extremely disappointed when I saw that there wasn't a cover. Then I felt more than a bit silly not too long after, after all, it just means more story! Was I just being irrational?
If you would like to vote about your feelings on the matter, I've set up a poll on this topic, so enjoy.
Okay, moving on to the story now... 2. Yep, the MS... C? Waitaminute, Mass Shadow Clones!? Yes! After all these theories of Kakashi employing his Mangekyou Sharingan in order to train Naruto, which would have dismayed me personally, the training method ends up being almost completely in Naruto's hands, not his mentor's. And even better, with the power of his own favorite jutsu. So, in short, Kishimoto escapes the risk of being called unoriginal, and I also think this time he surprised nearly all his readers by not taking the MS route. Good for him.
The reason, of course, that I disliked the concept of the Mangekyou Sharingan creating a virtual "time-stop training ground" for Naruto was that it would have been WAY too trite in that it was superficially similar to how Son Goku and Gohan went about their training in Dragonballz. But this, the employment of the Tajū Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Multiple Shadow Clone Technique) in the training, has more of a "Naruto" feeling and is much more unique. It also allows Naruto to go "full circle," allowing him to enjoy additional benefits and advantages of an extraordinary jutsu he's had since the very first chapter. Yay.
Wonder if this was the reason Kishimoto wanted to tease his readers for so long, because he wanted to make them all think deeply on it and start to suspect it was the MS, making the surprise even bigger in the end. Maybe he was trying to do a late April's Fool joke on us all. He is a tricky devil, after all...
3. Reconnaissance Man. I think we've all suspected it for a while now, ever since one of Naruto's bunshins fell to his knees in agony after the original had Kyuubified to Two-Tails, a reaction that alarmed Kakashi enough to pull out the ol' trusty Jiraiya-recommended Chakra-Suppressing "condom...!" From that one scene, we could already guess that the clones possessed an emotional resonance of sorts to Naruto. And now we learn that the real McCoy, or McFox if you will, can also absorb all their memories and experiences when they vanish. Not to mention that if Yamato's apparent psychic link with his clone tailing Orochimaru was anything to be judged by, Naruto may someday have the capability of being able to communicate telepathically with all his clones at some point. Intriguing! But seems as though he's been in the dark about all this for quite a while...
Still, I don't think you can really blame the overly-hyperactive teen for not knowing. Naruto's always been one to work closely together with his clones, and he also tends to make so many that sometimes there's actually not enough space for all of them to fight in any given battle. Then there's the part where they were usually all working towards the same goal - defeating the current opponent, which obviously made for similar experiences that were probably merged into one cohesive memory when it was all said and done. Furthermore, the original Naruto was always somewhere nearby, either watching or participating, and his dominant perspective most likely took precedence over the different ones that appeared in his mind when the clones were dispelled. For somebody not exactly known for his intelligence, it kinda makes sense.
Sure, there's been times where one of Naruto's bunshins has to wander off from the rest of the flock, but it didn't happen often from what we saw, and again, Naruto probably just never stopped to think about why he had two different memories of doing two different things at the same time - you could always blame it on his power of fierce concentration on accomplishing his goals. He didn't typically count on his clones to collect information for him - the closest was when he was searching for Sasuke in the halls of Orochimaru's lair. With more experience using his clones not just for fighting but rather searching, I'm sure he would have come to realize it eventually.
Still, I must say, it's amazing how much potential the Kage Bunshin no Jutsu gives Naruto in order to be one of the most astonishing reconnaissance scouts in Konohagakure. Even Neji may not have as much potential with his "All-Seeing Eye" - he can't find every trap in the area, for instance, because not all of them are so easily seen and can only be discovered by actually triggering them (ie. the Akatsuki's Clone traps). Compare that to how, with enough chakra, Naruto and his bunshins could easily explore and cover every inch of a territory in an instant and not worry so much about the consequences. Woo...!
EDIT: Jabbament corrected me that Yamato was in fact talking via a radio transmitter to his Moku bunshin, so please discount what I said about the possibility of a telepathic link. In a way, I'm kind of glad, because it also means Naruto has more of an excuse not to have known the "recall" ability he has with his clones.
4. Luck of the Kyuubi...? Appropriate that Naruto should have the Devil's own luck what with the evil nine-tailed bijuu inside him. We've already seen that he had a talent for the lottery in chapter 156 when he was just beginning the third step of his Rasengan training with Jiraiya's guidance. And now we see his bunshin defeating Kakashi's bunshin in a match of Rock, Paper, Scissors, which reminded me of that. Naruto's the reverse Tsunade, I guess, when it comes to luck.
5. Patience's the Key. It's already been well-established that it makes Kakashi's hair stand on end to have a pupil as slow-learning as Naruto. And now, here we see him wondering, "Jiraiya-sama, how the hell did you ever teach this kid a jutsu like the Rasengan?" Heh, now THAT brings some memories back. Remember, guys, when Asuma and Kurenai were both awed by Naruto's growth in the Chuunin Exams back in chapter 76? As you can see, they were thinking such things as "This is that loser, Naruto?" and "What did Kakashi do?" Déjà vu!
Back then, though, I don't think Kakashi really should have been credited at all for Naruto's growth, as much as Naruto's innate talent for improvisement just had been underestimated by everybody. However, Jiraiya, being in Naruto's shoes once before, knew the right teaching method with Naruto, and that was, simply, patience. And that's what every great sensei, even in real life, needs to possess: a willingness to stay by their student while they absorb information, even if it takes days. And Kakashi's now having to learn it as well. But I guess it's not so easy being such a genius when it comes to training kids like Naruto, eh... but at least Kakashi wasn't as hot-blooded as he used to be before Obito died, huh!
Still, Jiraiya would often still vent about what an idiot Naruto was to his face when they were training together, so he was definitely frustrated at times as well. Luckily Naruto's known for his stubbornness, though, so maybe Kakashi should allow himself to mumble some obvious insults towards Naruto's way instead of keeping it all on the inside, just to get it out of his system. But I guess maybe he's too reserved for that sort of thing... guess we'll find out!
6. The Calm Before the Storm...! Okay, when Kakashi finally got it into Naruto's head that he would have to train with one thousand duplicates of himself at all times, I couldn't help but get a little excited to see the exercise start in full effect. In fact, everything seems to hint at some awesome, eye-opening Kishimoto artwork being on the way for our enjoyment. Hey, think about it for a second - this chapter wasn't very artistically involved, but it was dialogue-heavy, so didn't require much in the way of eye-opening visual masterpieces. This might mean that Kishimoto and his assistants were giving themselves a little time in order to finish illustrating some heavily involved art much like the one from the end of Chapter 202 (one of my personal favorite double spreads) for upcoming chapters:
Now imagine this - for the bulk of Naruto's training, we'll be seeing this sort of thing constantly, perhaps even with clones of Kakashi and Yamato's own joining in, while all the originals sit somewhere nearby watching everything going on. Perhaps they'll even go as far as disguise some of the clones as former enemies (maybe we'll see the return of Zabuza in a sense?) just to make it seem more intimidating a training exercise and to get the adrenaline running. Even the idea of a "Naruto Mock War" is fun to contemplate. Anyway, that's just my own imagination talking, but that's what I'd like to see coming in future chapters. Would be exciting and impressive, I bet.
7. Forbidden for a Reason. HisshouBuraiken, one of our translators here, commented along with his translation that "Wow, now we finally get why Kage Bunshin was labelled a forbidden jutsu... it's sick!"
True, but it wasn't because of its training potential, I have a feeling. Yes, Kakashi had just said, "With a thousand clones, something that would normally take you twenty years would take a week," which was what had spurred HisshouBuraiken to say that. But in my opinion, it's just that Naruto is the only one living in the entire village of Konohagakure whose original body won't be sucked completely dry from heavy usage of Kage Bunshin. In fact, Kakashi here clearly says that he's never been able to train that way, because he only has half of Naruto's "default" chakra. And that's not even counting the "Kyuubi chakra" within Naruto, which here we learn that with a little help, could give him 100 times as much power. I understand more than ever now why Kage Bunshin is forbidden. It could very easily kill its user once activated. It's no surprise at all to me that Naruto's the only one that can do this training.
8. The Return of Yamato...! Considering that Yamato had impressed me so much in the last storyarc, I'm glad to see him come back and participating in Naruto's training. Makes sense too, considering Yamato's the only jounin around that can help Naruto out in keeping the beast within him, although I didn't think they would have actually asked Naruto to draw power from it. Funnily enough, we've also never seen a case where a student actually has two elite teachers present at the time of his training in the series, so Naruto's golden luck surely must be at work again.
I'm also hopeful to see some more dialogue between Yamato and Kakashi to get a sense of how they must have gotten along with each other while they were on the same team in the ANBU. Yamato seems to have a great deal of respect for Kakashi, but in doing so he seems amazingly humble, because he seems capable of being just as great a shinobi himself. There's a story somewhere here, I have a feeling... and I don't think it's just a matter of Kakashi probably saving Yamato's life at some point, because Yamato's probably done the same for Kakashi. It's probably another Obito-Kakashi deal, where the two came to an understanding about each other, or at least Yamato did. The fun's all in finding out, though...
9. What's So Advanced About That? This is my main issue with the chapter. We see Kakashi explaining "five basic types of chakra used for jutsu," which counts fire, wind, water, lightning, and earth, for Naruto's training. The sidetext at the beginning of chapter had promoted Kakashi's lesson as a "ultra high-level lecture," yet I can easily see this sort of speech as part of an early Academy class with Iruka being the sensei! In fact, I'd be insulted, if I was a student at the Academy and they never tested to find out what element for which my chakra would be ideal!
And now Kakashi's explaining it to Naruto now, instead of earlier when Team 7 was first formed, when Naruto could have used the knowledge and worked on that for two years? What about Sakura? Is Kakashi ever going to tell her? Yeah, okay, Tsunade's probably already taught her, but that brings us to ANOTHER thing. Out of the five elements, where does "healing" and "puppeting" count? What about Shikamaru's "shadow manipulation?" Seems like there's more to it than just five basic types of chakra, doesn't it, and this doesn't exactly count as an "advanced" lesson.
The only reasonable explanation I can think of for these particular jutsus is that these aren't shaped from any type of nature, but rather are made of pure chakra, much like how Sakura channels her chakra to create devastation with her fists, Neji guides his own to invade the opponent's body, Kidoumaru hardens his own into golden skin, arrows, and webs, Kankurou sticks his own to his puppets, and yes, Naruto's Rasengan.
I suppose I just don't understand why Kakashi didn't go into all this already when Team 7 was first formed. It definitely would have helped Naruto early on to know what type of nature his chakra had an affinity for, and seems VERY negligent of him. But better late than never, I guess... but I'm still bothered by it.
10. Naruto Is... A Male Temari!? =O We did get an interesting revelation about Naruto there at the end, though his surname (meaning "Whirlpool") sort of hinted at it already. So is anybody surprised that Naruto's chakra is wind-inclined? I know I wasn't, and I guess that's why Kishimoto didn't bother to make it a cliffhanger for once. Now all our kid needs is a couple of fans and he's well on his way to being the next Temari... minus the sexy legs.
Seriously, though, the idea of Naruto being a "Weather Wizard," is kind of interesting. Very appropriate too, considering he's such a temperental kid. Wonder if we're about to learn all sorts of wind and tempest jutsus from here on. I've also noticed that people here have been arguing about the Rasengan being a wind jutsu - but like I already said, it's most definitely a "pure chakra" type of jutsu. But even so, it's still likely that Naruto's chakra tendency probably helped out on his one-week "crash course" in being able to do a jutsu resembling a small typhoon. And it might be that Naruto is supposed to make his Rasengan an actual super-powered "Wind Jutsu" by adding the element to it in some form, though.
Sidenote: I also happened to enjoy the introduction and concept of the "paper tests." Very inventive, and fun to think about how that "special" paper would respond to all the characters in the series. I also wonder too, if the paper would even respond to Rock Lee at all. Probably not. What's Sakura's element, though? Maybe Water? Earth? Hmm. Opens a whole world of theorizing, doesn't it?
RATING: 4 out of 5 stars. Something about the lesson being described as "advanced" just annoyed me (see Comment 9), and there wasn't much going on anyway that it should deserve a five-star ranking. What saved the chapter from a three-star ranking for me was the dismissal of Kakashi's Mangekyou Sharingan having anything to do with the training, which made me happy. And I can't wait to see all the possibilities that might come out of this Kage Bunshin training exercise.
Predictions: According to the preview for the next chapter, the Akatsuki is going to make an appearance. I'm going to take a big guess here and say that it won't be Hidan and Kakuzu, because weren't they going to collect a bounty on Chiriku? May be Tobi and Deidara instead. Or even Itachi and Kisame, finally coming to make an attempt at capturing Naruto. Other than that, I predict that the training will begin, obviously, and also that Asuma will make another appearance - we'll probably hear more about his plan since the preview ended with the title "Penance," and remember, Asuma seemed to be trying to atone for his past mistakes with his father. Of course, previews generally aren't to be trusted at all, but I still can't wait anyway.
Hope you enjoyed, looking forward to hearing from you guys!
