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Enlightened Monkey Presents......
Naruto 345: Review
So we begin the chapter with a nice, full-size picture of every Sasuke fanboy's dream -- Oro with his arms and tongue around our little Uchiha hero....very tasty, that boy must be. Nothing like a prodigy's skin on a snake's tongue to start the chapter that many believe to be the demise of the snake itself. Do I follow in this belief? Hard to say -- as the writer, I'm sure, fully intends. Let's continue.
We immediately begin the chapter reminded of the promise Oro made to the future: immortality and his complete, budding obsession to see his parents one more time. He gazes at the snake with no evil in his eyes....and, in the following panels, we see a perfect analogy of Sasuke peering at Orochimaru with a similar expression, in CS2 form, with the white snake before him apparently dead. The analogy? It can be interpreted in many ways from rebirth (Oro's newfound obsession in the palm of his hand to Sasuke's realization that his brother is within reach now that a sennin has been dealt with) to a simple form of utter devotion to a newfound cause. Tales based on Japanese mythology are a lot deeper than they may seem, and so a lot can be looked into at once.
And that's just the first page.
Next, we can see that Sasuke made a successful two (at least) slashes on Oro's snake body -- and he'd expected that he'd won with those attacks alone? I was rather surprised at him for this since Oro's body itself IS snakes, and requires no preservation and continually regenerates with snakes unto themselves. Sasuke was obviously confident enough that his abilities were enough, however, for the big words he'd used ("That was far too easy...."). But were they?
Apparently not. In fact, Oro had the complete upper hand as he used a common ninja's theory of battle, cunning, to allow himself time and Sasuke's pride to come together in the form of his airborne poison and Sasuke's revertion to normal mode to create a physical advantage that might have been deadly for Sasuke had Oro not wanted his body. We're talking a 50 year old legendary ninja here! I'd have been shocked and quite disappointed if that had truly been the end -- but it wasn't, and so there was time to move on. And, as I'd predicted, Oro never needed any particular length of snake-body to survive on.
Now does Oro dive into Sasuke's body here....? I'm not quite sure but either way we end up in the spirit world where he and Sasuke are together along with two folks we recognize -- that dude Oro took over after the dude himself won the battle royale for the grand prize of being taken over by Oro....and the girl that Oro turned out to be against Sandaime (does that mean the geezer was killed by a girl? In actual physical terms? Interesting, debatable concept. I guess we can conclude that the soul of Oro is what matters, even though it would seem that a prepubescant girl's body was all he needed for the trick).
So next! Sasuke begins to be overwhelmed by bubbly goo and snakes coming out of his body as he's smothered -- but! Surprise surprise, he's done what his brother was doing way before his time and using his eye to a greater potential. Yay Sasuke. Still years behind your brother but....or actually maybe not. Sasuke's 15? When did Itachi slaugher the clan, same age? So perhaps, then, they're roughly equal. Always a point of interest, their growth rate in terms of age to one another. Could Sasuke wipe out his clan now? Well with Itachi in it, the answer's no. Without him? Who knows, but perhaps with a sword in his hand like Itachi he'd have a good chance.
Flashback! Oro's trapped by rather large stakes (painful!) in terms of the spirit world. He tries to put his hands together for a jutsu or a "kai" and ends up with a hand missing. Nice one, Itachi. No respect for eldars but that's just the way the cookie crumbles. Oro had some long nails, too.
Back in Sasuke/Oro land, Sasuke's staring intently at Oro with a look on his face that means trouble for the 2.5 years of crap Oro put him through. Oooh, the exact same stakes Itachi used are now put through Oro's spirit body! Interesting. One wonders just how Oro's keeping his cool but then we remember that he's been through all this before, and is also a genius (no matter how much Sasuke may think of his clan, that is the ultimate truth -- and without Oro....well....), and therefore most likely knows by now how to deal with such a technique that Itachi by now has probably surpassed anyways. So Oro seems all cool and good. For now. Even shares his thoughts on how Sasuke is his, stakes shoved into his spirit body or not.
Kabuto preparing stuff, commenting on how "even Sasuke" this and that, talking about how Oro can't go another day without spirit transfer. You'd think there's plenty of ninja Oro could transfer asides from Sasuke but I guess the kid wiped them all out during Kusanagi practice (kidding.....we all know he can only do it every 3 years and that he wants it NOW). Wait, he injured them. Still, doubt Oro would want to transfer into some castrated guy. Then again he's a multitude of snakes wrapped in one so he wouldln't really end up giving a damn either way.
Kabuto sees a whole lot of blood, takes coverage measures beside the doorway and notices the white snake's molted. Sasuke is all that remains.
But is it Sasuke.....? Even our perceptive Kabuto truly does not know, and we're left with these arguments on who it may be:
Sasuke: after hearing on how he "didn't want anybody but certain people dead"....we can assume that he'd naturally just walk by Kabuto like nothing, especially if he'd just defeated his master. Also, he DID know the same sealing method as Itachi did at the time, and may therefore have been able to stave off any takeover.
Orochimaru: Oro was convinced he'd win out, even when Sasuke used that very technique on him. He wouldn't hurt Kabuto and while a calm, collected Oro without a malicious grin on his face isn't something we're used to seeing, he may very well be inside Sasuke -- a different body, his ultimate of dreams realized, the moment he'd been waiting for for many years finally here. And no, Oro wouldn't be jumping up and down for joy ("Yay! I got it! I got it!!!")
A Mixture of the Two: Well wasn't the legend that the "genius" would give the snake "infinite vision"? Maybe this calm, collected guy is the two of them mixed together, someone with infinite vision (when you have infinite vision you usually try to look as calm and badass as possible....otherwise when you're done taking over the world the badass metre's just that little bit lower then it could have been).
My opinion? To be honest, I simply do not know.
MONKEY'S RATING: (possible 5 stars)
Story: ****
We move along the road of poetry, unsure of all things, never straying from the path of mystery as the conclusion leaves us in a mix of confusion and anticipation.......
Battle(s): N/A
Twists/Discoveries: ***
What DID we discover? Well, to me, finding out just how Oro got his bum handed to him helped things along. I was kind of waiting to see how Itachi ended up beating him although his "all powerful eye" disappointed me a bit...I'd expected a beatdown mixed with some sharingan power and a bit of MS at the end. Nope....yet, all the same, discovering the power of the sharingan and it's full effects was something to be appreciated. Also good to know that Sasuke's making good use of his spare time working hard at staring at things to stick them full of stakes in the spirit world. Works, I guess.
Oro's blood is a noxious, airborne poison! How neat is that? They should do that for crappy MMA fighters except they'd end up poisoning themselves most likely.
What other twists/discoveries were there...not much. But the Itachi/Oro thing grabbed the three stars I bestowed upon the subject.
As I progress in the reviews there'll be more categories to analyze and look over. This is, however, the end of my first official chapter review so:
well that's it actually.
Comments appreciated.
Naruto 345: Review
So we begin the chapter with a nice, full-size picture of every Sasuke fanboy's dream -- Oro with his arms and tongue around our little Uchiha hero....very tasty, that boy must be. Nothing like a prodigy's skin on a snake's tongue to start the chapter that many believe to be the demise of the snake itself. Do I follow in this belief? Hard to say -- as the writer, I'm sure, fully intends. Let's continue.
We immediately begin the chapter reminded of the promise Oro made to the future: immortality and his complete, budding obsession to see his parents one more time. He gazes at the snake with no evil in his eyes....and, in the following panels, we see a perfect analogy of Sasuke peering at Orochimaru with a similar expression, in CS2 form, with the white snake before him apparently dead. The analogy? It can be interpreted in many ways from rebirth (Oro's newfound obsession in the palm of his hand to Sasuke's realization that his brother is within reach now that a sennin has been dealt with) to a simple form of utter devotion to a newfound cause. Tales based on Japanese mythology are a lot deeper than they may seem, and so a lot can be looked into at once.
And that's just the first page.
Next, we can see that Sasuke made a successful two (at least) slashes on Oro's snake body -- and he'd expected that he'd won with those attacks alone? I was rather surprised at him for this since Oro's body itself IS snakes, and requires no preservation and continually regenerates with snakes unto themselves. Sasuke was obviously confident enough that his abilities were enough, however, for the big words he'd used ("That was far too easy...."). But were they?
Apparently not. In fact, Oro had the complete upper hand as he used a common ninja's theory of battle, cunning, to allow himself time and Sasuke's pride to come together in the form of his airborne poison and Sasuke's revertion to normal mode to create a physical advantage that might have been deadly for Sasuke had Oro not wanted his body. We're talking a 50 year old legendary ninja here! I'd have been shocked and quite disappointed if that had truly been the end -- but it wasn't, and so there was time to move on. And, as I'd predicted, Oro never needed any particular length of snake-body to survive on.
Now does Oro dive into Sasuke's body here....? I'm not quite sure but either way we end up in the spirit world where he and Sasuke are together along with two folks we recognize -- that dude Oro took over after the dude himself won the battle royale for the grand prize of being taken over by Oro....and the girl that Oro turned out to be against Sandaime (does that mean the geezer was killed by a girl? In actual physical terms? Interesting, debatable concept. I guess we can conclude that the soul of Oro is what matters, even though it would seem that a prepubescant girl's body was all he needed for the trick).
So next! Sasuke begins to be overwhelmed by bubbly goo and snakes coming out of his body as he's smothered -- but! Surprise surprise, he's done what his brother was doing way before his time and using his eye to a greater potential. Yay Sasuke. Still years behind your brother but....or actually maybe not. Sasuke's 15? When did Itachi slaugher the clan, same age? So perhaps, then, they're roughly equal. Always a point of interest, their growth rate in terms of age to one another. Could Sasuke wipe out his clan now? Well with Itachi in it, the answer's no. Without him? Who knows, but perhaps with a sword in his hand like Itachi he'd have a good chance.
Flashback! Oro's trapped by rather large stakes (painful!) in terms of the spirit world. He tries to put his hands together for a jutsu or a "kai" and ends up with a hand missing. Nice one, Itachi. No respect for eldars but that's just the way the cookie crumbles. Oro had some long nails, too.
Back in Sasuke/Oro land, Sasuke's staring intently at Oro with a look on his face that means trouble for the 2.5 years of crap Oro put him through. Oooh, the exact same stakes Itachi used are now put through Oro's spirit body! Interesting. One wonders just how Oro's keeping his cool but then we remember that he's been through all this before, and is also a genius (no matter how much Sasuke may think of his clan, that is the ultimate truth -- and without Oro....well....), and therefore most likely knows by now how to deal with such a technique that Itachi by now has probably surpassed anyways. So Oro seems all cool and good. For now. Even shares his thoughts on how Sasuke is his, stakes shoved into his spirit body or not.
Kabuto preparing stuff, commenting on how "even Sasuke" this and that, talking about how Oro can't go another day without spirit transfer. You'd think there's plenty of ninja Oro could transfer asides from Sasuke but I guess the kid wiped them all out during Kusanagi practice (kidding.....we all know he can only do it every 3 years and that he wants it NOW). Wait, he injured them. Still, doubt Oro would want to transfer into some castrated guy. Then again he's a multitude of snakes wrapped in one so he wouldln't really end up giving a damn either way.
Kabuto sees a whole lot of blood, takes coverage measures beside the doorway and notices the white snake's molted. Sasuke is all that remains.
But is it Sasuke.....? Even our perceptive Kabuto truly does not know, and we're left with these arguments on who it may be:
Sasuke: after hearing on how he "didn't want anybody but certain people dead"....we can assume that he'd naturally just walk by Kabuto like nothing, especially if he'd just defeated his master. Also, he DID know the same sealing method as Itachi did at the time, and may therefore have been able to stave off any takeover.
Orochimaru: Oro was convinced he'd win out, even when Sasuke used that very technique on him. He wouldn't hurt Kabuto and while a calm, collected Oro without a malicious grin on his face isn't something we're used to seeing, he may very well be inside Sasuke -- a different body, his ultimate of dreams realized, the moment he'd been waiting for for many years finally here. And no, Oro wouldn't be jumping up and down for joy ("Yay! I got it! I got it!!!")
A Mixture of the Two: Well wasn't the legend that the "genius" would give the snake "infinite vision"? Maybe this calm, collected guy is the two of them mixed together, someone with infinite vision (when you have infinite vision you usually try to look as calm and badass as possible....otherwise when you're done taking over the world the badass metre's just that little bit lower then it could have been).
My opinion? To be honest, I simply do not know.
MONKEY'S RATING: (possible 5 stars)
Story: ****
We move along the road of poetry, unsure of all things, never straying from the path of mystery as the conclusion leaves us in a mix of confusion and anticipation.......
Battle(s): N/A
Twists/Discoveries: ***
What DID we discover? Well, to me, finding out just how Oro got his bum handed to him helped things along. I was kind of waiting to see how Itachi ended up beating him although his "all powerful eye" disappointed me a bit...I'd expected a beatdown mixed with some sharingan power and a bit of MS at the end. Nope....yet, all the same, discovering the power of the sharingan and it's full effects was something to be appreciated. Also good to know that Sasuke's making good use of his spare time working hard at staring at things to stick them full of stakes in the spirit world. Works, I guess.
Oro's blood is a noxious, airborne poison! How neat is that? They should do that for crappy MMA fighters except they'd end up poisoning themselves most likely.
What other twists/discoveries were there...not much. But the Itachi/Oro thing grabbed the three stars I bestowed upon the subject.
As I progress in the reviews there'll be more categories to analyze and look over. This is, however, the end of my first official chapter review so:
well that's it actually.
Comments appreciated.
