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That... was.... quick... guh!
Heya! Yeppers, that's right - a Naruto Comments out on RAW Day. Surprise, surprise...!
Didn't have to wait long this time, did ya?
Well, yup, because of the lateness of the last two editions of Naruto Comments, I've decided to take a different approach this week. You may have noticed that HQ Raws came out for both Bleach and One Piece, yet Naruto STILL got a LQ Raw. Bugger. That didn't exactly make me optimistic at all. So I went ahead.
From now on, I'll be writing and posting my Naruto Comments with RAW-quality images to start with and getting it out as early as possible. But yes, I'll be replacing them later on in the weekend with MQ-HQ images, just for the sake of overall presentation. You can think of this as an "early edition" for now. If you do want, however, to wait to read until the images are finalized, you can come back later when you notice "RAW Edition" has been taken out of the thread title. Alright?
Why am I doing this? Hey, I can count three reasons - one, I'll be able to get my Naruto comments out of the way when I'm really inspired to do them, plus it'll give me more time on the weekend to talk to Katy and my friends
, two, any interested readers are able to throw in their thoughts much sooner (yay!), and finally, three, it's easier to let any Manga Editors wanting to clean these images for my Comments know almost what exactly I want. So if you want to do any cleans for my Comments this week, please send me a PM. ^^ In the meanwhile, I'll be using NarutoIpod's LQ Edited Manga.Edit: Rigor mortis and Fnuckale are editing my Comments with better images throughout the day, btw XD Using Twoshirou's RAW. Thanks guys ^^
Edit2: Thanks to ibra78 for doing one of the panels.
That all being said, please enjoy and comment away when you have time.
* * * Gold Knight's Ten Comments on Naruto Chapter 325: There Is No After...! * * *
Gosh, hope he doesn't make me do the Macarena...
1. Scared Now? Judging by Kakuzu and Hidan's surprise, neither of them seemed to expect Shikamaru's Kagemane jutsu to be able to forcibly move its target. If that's the case, and it looks that way, I understand better now why Hidan thought he could be able to take on Asuma's team by himself. He only suspected that the Kagemane would freeze him, and he took it as a direct challenge to his strength of willpower. He didn't know that it would also threat his position on the pentagram.
Odd thing, though, because I had expected the Akatsuki to at least have some awareness of the Shadow Imitation Technique beforehand. Remember when Shikamaru was faced with several Sound trackers and these guys said that his "Kageshibari no Jutsu" was famous? Well, if these guys said that, in that case, Hidan and Kakuzu both must have terribly been out of the loop. Hm.
Well, at the same time, I suppose Orochimaru may have known more about Konoha special abilities than most people, and he might have warned his men about that one.
"Minor" wounds... with that weapon?
2. The Scythe of Doom...! Well, Shikamaru starts his explanation by mentioning how odd Hidan's weapon seemed to him in that it had "three blades." Does anybody find that rather bizarre? Sure, I can understand how he'd deduce a reason to the scythe being made into such a long-range weapon (rather unusual), but I would have thought that he'd point out the tailing cord at its end that was attached to Hidan's arm, instead.
I mean, I'd be less surprised that Shikamaru mentioned the blades *if* there had been more than just three. How about some more little blades dotted all over the weapon except for the handle? Now that'd really open somebody's skin!
But I suppose I may just be picky here. Maybe Hidan was just confident and skilled enough that he could get somebody's blood with just these three blades (he did get Asuma's after all). And I'll agree that Hidan's scythe might be more designed to partake the blood of his opponents in order to activate his "voodoo jutsu" than to kill anybody, since it's such an awkward-looking weapon.
But at the same time I can see it finishing somebody's life, too. These blades ARE wicked-looking, and I still think Hidan would have killed Asuma a few chapters ago outright if he didn't have to avoid Shikamaru's jutsu. (Of course, I suppose Hidan wanted to play around with Asuma too, first, as well.)
You mean he wasn't just messing up my face for fun?
3. Hidan's Secrets Revealed...! Can I just give myself a pat on the back here? Heh, if you figured it out yourself too, give yourself the same treatment by all means.
Well, my prediction last week did come true. Shikamaru had fully intended to move Hidan off the pentagram, after all. That was all there was to his plan, and I don't blame him for not even having to meditate in order to figure out a way out of the situation. Hey, with all the hints that Kishimoto gave us throughout the fight, most of us probably guessed at what would happen, and how many of us have an IQ as high as Shikamaru's, I wonder?
Granted, we weren't exactly stressed about the possibility of losing our lives against the Akatsuki, either, and Hidan did do his jutsu in a hurry, so if Shikamaru had blinked during even one second of it, he might have missed something. So I'll give him credit for grasping the situation so quickly.
I wouldn't wait for Asuma's fire jutsu to hit me, either >.>
Yeah, so let's talk about Hidan's jutsu. Actually, not much to say. Basically step one was to get some blood and taste it. Step two was to walk onto the pentagram. Step three, after the transformation, was to dish out some serious pain.
Pretty much all there was to it. To be honest, I'm somewhat disappointed that Hidan's "voodoo jutsu" didn't exactly have any more surprises. But Hidan is definitely a character where coordinated teamwork would be required for somebody to even have a hope of defeating him. One on one, Hidan's definitely scary.
Er, who's been doing the talking...? LoL!
4. Keepin' His Cool. I nearly doubled up with laughter when I read Shikamaru's comeback here. Hey, wasn't it *Shikamaru* who was the one who was doing all the talking for most of the first five pages? So for him to say "Shut up, you talk too much" to Hidan here - priceless...!!! Yeah, I know Hidan had just shouted profanities at the kid, but still funny all the same. Although it's true, though, Hidan does have a mouth on him.
Anyway, that wasn't the only reason I brought up this particular series of pages as a Comment. Take a look at the next image, please...!
Temper, temper.
You can see that Hidan was obviously irate and pissed as hell, and I submit that his loss of composure here inevitably led to his immediate defeat. That was Shikamaru's trap right there - by causing Hidan to lose focus, he was then able to finally pull Hidan away from the pentagram with the will of his Kagemane.
So in this case, I think I can say Shikamaru's quality as a cool customer definitely paid off in spades. But then again, over the last two years and a half, he's probably had tons of training with his father in controlling his Kagemane. Still, very, very impressive that Shikamaru won THIS struggle.
Compare that to when he had such trouble with Tayuya. Shikamaru's definitely grown. Good going, kid.
Target Practice!
5. Playin' By the Ear. Okay, just goes to show you how bad-ass Asuma can be. Risking his own ear being split by throwing a shuriken at the Hidan's ear in order to test whether the jutsu's still working or not. Asuma won't ever be guilty of the proverb, "he who hesitates is lost," that's for sure...!
Good going for Asuma as well to realize that he needed to do that first before jumping to any conclusions. That would probably have cost him his own life if the jutsu hadn't in fact been cancelled.
Hook, line, and sinker...!
6. Netted...! Heh, Konohagakure probably isn't going to have any problems with their food supplies as long as Shikamaru's around. Just image hunting down a boar, and then just sitting idly on the ground while you let your shadows do the dirty work of tying it down! Suits Shikamaru well, he doesn't like to do much but stare at the clouds, after all.
Anyhow, that's a new aspect of Kage Nui we hadn't seen until now. Technically, I suppose it could count as a new Shikamaru move, and one I definitely can see video game designers also incorporating into his repertoire of combat techniques. Woo.
I'm also going to take a guess here and say that was what Shikamaru was attempting to try to do two chapters ago while Hidan was jumping around, because rendering him immobile would have allowed Asuma an opportunity to do a finishing move on him. Unlike Kagemane, though, notice that it seemingly can't just "freeze" the opponent by touching his/her shadow, but actually has to pierce the skin in order to pin him/her down. But with so many "shadow tendrils," that's apparently no problem.
I can seeing Kage Nui as a very lethal move as well. Imagine a shadow needle through the heart, or the brain, and pfft. Deader than a doornail Of course, didn't hurt Hidan much here, but then again, he IS a tad special...!
Sorry, Kakuzu's still counting his money...
7. Change of Heart. So much for Hidan's haughty overconfidence, eh? It's still pretty damn refreshing to see a villain in the Naruto series that finally admitted he needed help from somebody else. We've only seen it once before, but I think Tobi was being more lazy than actually needing Deidei's help with the Sanbi. (Although it's odd, that the Akatsuki, being such a tough group of evil geniuses, would still depend on each other so much.)
But as for the rest, for example, Orochimaru, who would rather choke on cake than to say he needed anybody's help, Itachi, who only teams up with people when it suits his interests, Kabuto, supremely confident in himself, as are Kisame and Sasori... well, we haven't had that many villains yet I suppose.
Heh, however, I'm not so surprised that Hidan was so quick to change his tune and yell for help when he saw Asuma coming at him with these dead-serious eyes.
So, Asuma turned out to be more of the grim reaper here, eh?
PWNED!
8. Whoa, Heads ARE Rolling...! One of our moderators, Ayah, had a message on MSN this week that said "heads will roll if the chapter isn't interesting tomorrow." Coincedence? Maybe Kishimoto was thinking along the same lines...
Well, this chapter certainly wasn't dull, at least. This particular scene - well, when was the last time we've had a "shocker" like this before? Much less decapitation in the series! Whee! Sure, there was that moment where Kakashi accidentally blew a hole in Haku's chest, but that was such a long time ago. We did need this, I think. Just some blood, ya know? (Although we still haven't had a death in a while...)
Still, I'd just have to say I loved this double spread. Just look at Hidan's facial expression there! "DOH! He actually did it!" Perfectly drawn!
Excuses, excuses...!
9. Die Hard...! Heh, funny how many different ways Hidan will curse people. But I guess that makes sense, all things considering...
Alright, I'll have to give Hidan some credit here. Most immortals usually die, at least, when they're decapitated. In Blade of the Immortal, that would have been the case with Manji. I could name other examples, but Hidan obviously defied all that here.
So what the heck is up with Hidan's immortality? It seems to go beyond chakra manipulation, at least to me. Has he discovered the secret that Orochimaru and Sasori had been aspiring for all this time, and achieved everlasting life? No, I doubt it. I can't help but think, though, of the example of a lich.
Liches are undead creatures, however, and Hidan's obviously alive. But still, he may have stored his soul, or life essence, in some sort of faraway container that would keep his body alive. Or perhaps it wouldn't be faraway at all. I highly suspect his pendant... if it breaks, then would Hidan be mortal again?
Not too unlike Sasori, though, if that's the case.
Well, at least we know now why Hidan was so quick to stab his leg when Asuma was charging at him. Maybe he's immortal and all, and yeah, it would've killed Asuma too, but Hidan didn't want his head to be separated from his body. That would pretty much have neutralized him right there, as we saw here.
Also, another thing. Readers were confused last week as to why exactly Hidan didn't just use his three-bladed scythe instead of another weapon. Well, I think we found out this week about that, too. That scythe of his, despite being an instrument of torture, actually doesn't look like it'd do a good job of striking a vital spot... and heck, Hidan would have risked decapitating himself in the process!
Sidenote: Pretty amusing that Hidan still hadn't lost his bark even when his head's on the ground, heh...
Anybody up for a game of basketball...?
10. Enter: Kakuzu...! When I saw the spoiler pictures yesterday, initially I thought Kakuzu was going to betray Hidan and leave him. Wouldn't have blamed him, either, for all the grief Hidan's given him, but that would have been somewhat of a downer. Hey, I'm not a music fan whatsoever (being deaf), but when the Beatles broke up, I know a lot of people were disappointed. Same thing would have happened, I think, for all the Naruto readers if these two went their separate ways.
But nope! Kakuzu did indeed come to Hidan's assistance. That both surprised me and made me happy at the same time.
And in some ways, that made me like this duo even more...! Even despite all the problems they've had with each other, they're still a team. Yeah, they're a dysfunctional team, but they're willing to work with each other. And damn, is their dialogue entertaining.
I actually hope that they'll both survive this battle, although I wish the same for Asuma as well. Either way, it's been a pretty darn fun storyline so far.
Sidenote: Hidan wanted his body back, meaning he likely can heal if his head's put on top again. So Hidan's not done yet, kids. I don't blame him though for being distressed that Kakuzu was picking up his head rather than his body...! That's gotta make him dizzy and nauseous (though he's not going to have to worry about tossing his cookies just yet, I guess!)
My Crackhead Theory: Since we're promised that Kakuzu will get serious by the preview (of course, take that with a grain of salt...), I'm guessing we'll see him in action shortly. So what does Kakuzu's powers entail? He's seemed more like a male Tsunade, as I said before in a review, but I think he'll be much more than that. I'm going to make an out-of-blue guess here, but I think Kakuzu will be able to turn any part of his body into an explosive based attack. Yeah, a bit like Deidara, but still different.
RATING: 4 out of 5 stars. I wish that the first part of the chapter wasn't so much about how Shikamaru had figured out Hidan's jutsu as just putting his strategy in effect. But I suppose it would have been boring if Shikamaru had just been struggling in silence all these pages to pull Hidan off the pentagram, so I'll let that pass - but for that, this chapter didn't get a 5-star ranking. However, the latter part of the story was golden. I loved the decapitation (odd as that sounds), and Hidan's frustration. This chapter was actually very comedic in some parts, despite the seriousness of the battle. And the cliffhanger definitely means this battle's not over by any means.
Predictions: Asuma's team isn't going to give up now, so Kakuzu is going to have to go into action now. At the same time, Shikamaru will have to figure out how to cancel Hidan's jutsu, because if he gets back to the pentagram - Asuma's still not out of the woods yet. I actually expect some sort of glimpse at how Sakura and Sai are doing, though. It's been a while.
Credits: Thanks to NarutoIpod.com for their LQ Edited Manga and Hisshouburakein, Yoshitsune, and Brucelee for their quick translations. Hisshou's dialogue was extremely funny (especially in Hidan's case) this week. Edit: Now I gotta thank Fnuckale, rigor mortis for their cleans of the images and Twoshirou for his cleaned RAW ^^ Edit2: Thanks to ibra78 for doing one of the panels.
Hope you enjoyed, and looking forward to seeing what you think!
Cripes! This is sooooo mortifying...!
Please comment <3
