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Hello, hello MH members and lurkers! Time has passed, exams are gone and a fresh university year is getting underway. A fresh new start, which I think applies in the case of Naruto as well.
It’s been a pretty long time and I missed the reviews and I missed talking to people here, so here’s one for you guys and one for the reviews. Cheers!
Being away for I think 5 weeks now means that I missed a few things, though my comments did surface once in a while. There were some pretty notable changes in the plot of the manga, some expected, some not, so I decided to quickly review the most important aspects.
The first one of course is the death of Kisame, who was among my favorite characters mostly, because of his behavior, which is in contradiction with his reputation as monster of the Hidden Mist. His resolve to never give up, and to detach himself from the lies of this world gave birth to good news for Madara as Kisame managed in the end to send the scroll with the information about the alliance and the hiding place of the Jinchuuriki. His resolve is even more interesting, because Madara is actually trying to create a world based on an illusion, basically a lie from the perspective of the people living in the current reality of Narutoverse. So this is somewhat a contradiction, but you know a lie is pretty much defined depending on which side are you, and even more reality is really just a matter a perspective and perception.
The second one is the death of Konan, another shinobi with great resolve to never give up, and a person true to her intentions and relationships. Though this time her death was in the end pretty pointless concerning the plot and the other characters, her fight was pretty entertaining and was a source of new information for us readers. For example Izanagi, the Uchiha jutsu of Yin-Yang manipulation, a manipulation that is the root of all creation in the Narutoverse, then Madara’s phase no jutsu, Madara’s long time plan and info about his battle against Hashirama etc…So in the end it was entertaining, but pretty much useless, but at least Konan demonstrated the fundamentals of shinobi fighting. Gather information, prepare in advance and kill. She did well until Izanagi, but that’s pretty much an unknown jutsu, but her paper-jutsu was pretty impressive, and I was a bit amused by all this talk about how she managed to create that much explosive tags, considering that people can replicate things in great number in a matter of mili-seconds in this manga. It’s not like she had printers at home
.
What’s more important though is the similarity of their deaths and the manner they were presented. Kishi picked two characters, an eternal villain, Kisame and a not so eternal villain Konan(we know she changed sides) and presented them in a way that put both of them in a more excusable position, at least this was the intention as I see it. Kisame’s flashbacks and Konan’s recollections served the purpose of showing the shinobi belonging to the old era are pretty much victims of circumstances, like wars for example, and that villains are not really villains, they just stand for their own beliefs. Naruto representing the light, the hope for a new era fits really well into this theme since Part 1 where Naruto decided not to be a victim of circumstances and to stand up on his own, proving the existence and the importance of choices during ones life.
With this Akatsuki was officially dead, but even more dangerous times are ahead as Madara decided to finally target Naruto seriously, which we know from taking out his old dusty fan, but combined with a brand new mask, which is pretty cool by the way.
So let’s see how is Madara planning to do this.
Pretty interesting title I must admit, and I think everyone agrees with me. We all suspected that Zetsu is pretty important if not for anything else then at least for Madara’s survival and repair. He is like the oil for Madara’s old rusty joints.
But this title puts it like there’s something more important about Zetsu, like he is a trump card or something.
Let me say this first before we bump into the great secret, that nothing is unexpected about Zetsu. Since the beginning of his appearance and during his slow development, many theories were made in joke or seriously like:Madara will support the war effort with Zetsu clones, or Danzou shoulder looks like Zetsu,so can Shodai be related to him, I mean he’s a plant and Hashirama grew plants etc…It’s interesting how these things, which mostly begin as jokes like the theoryThe ten-tails is sealed in the moon are starting to get shape…I just pray we won’t see a NaruSasu fusion activating Rinnegan in middle of a Susanoo made from sage chakra
.
But let’s cut the jokes here for a moment and head towards the actual developments
.
Even if it is the truth about Zetsu, the cover page is with Kabuto, and this time Kishi decided to offer a little info about him.
His true intentions remain unrevealed. When all is said and done, will it be the monster or the serpent that emerges?
Interesting choice of words, which unlocks two possible developments for Kabuto. Though I wonder what are those? When I saw the word monster, I couldn’t help not tot remember the Kabuto with bloody eyes and shiny glasses, who enjoyed violence and was full of bloodlust. I think that is the monster that Kishi is talking about, and combined with his new form, then we might actually see another version of the Great White Snake.
But this could as well be the serpent form as well, but I think this time serpent carries the meaning of being sneaky and intelligent, not using power until it’s absolutely necessary. So when it’s all said and done and Kabuto will face his last opponent will he remain the same slick guy, or will he unleash his anger and power? It depends on the opponent I guess…
So with and interesting title and great cover page and text, somehow Kishi is hinting that Kabuto will contribute to the revealing of the secret of Zetsu, which is no surprise, because if we recall Kabuto’s meeting with Yamato aka Sasori, then we know that cell and tissue sample exchanges were pretty common between Orochimaru and Akatsuki.
Kabuto offers himself to go and capture the remaining Jinchuuriki, and when asked what is he planning, he says that he wants to earn trust…yeah that’s a good one…and he wants to get his hands on Yamato who is a copy of Shodai. This is where I think that Kabuto is slowly showing hints of his original plan, which is not so original by the way. His first target is Yamato, just like Orochimaru’s first target was to create people with Shodai’s ability. Second target is Sasuke, who was targeted by Orochimaru as well, along with Itachi, but what matters is that they are both Uchiha. Remembering that Orochimaru’s goal was to find the origin of ninja techniques, and knowing that this origin was Rikudo Sennin, it’s not so hard to guess that Kabuto wants the same thing Orochimaru wanted and the same thing Madara wants, to recreate Rikudo Sennin, by uniting the two bloodlines of Senju and Uchiha.
With this in mind, probably, Kabuto offers to go hunt down the Jinchuuriki, but I guess the primary target is indeed Yamato. But Kabuto has a backup plan in case things with Yamato won’t go as planned. And the backup plan is Zetsu. Basically Kabuto wants to experiment on Shodai’s cells and Zetsu is closely related to that.
As a token of his trust Madara promises to give Kabuto one Zetsu if he manages to catch Kyuubi. This just means there are more Zetsus, so Kabuto was right when he said that Zetsu is the key to face the Alliance threat.
As Madara begins the tour of his base, they stumble upon Gedo Mazo, which is pretty bad for Madara, because Kabuto lead the Alliance spies exactly to this location, and this really looks like the main HQ of the big bad wolf. We can notice that Gedo Mazo is restrained, probably with a pretty powerful sealing jutsu.
Gedo Mazo first appeared when it was summoned by Pain to extract Ichibi from Gaara. It looked pretty menacing even back then, when it was immobile and just functioned as an extraction tool, but when it was presented the second time in the confrontation against Ame shinobi and Hanzou, it was pretty clear that this statue or thing will have a pretty important role in the story, if not then for the sole fact that it is the container of the bijous that were collected until now.
But now it’s just another tool in Madara’s hands, and this fate was getting shape since he said that he wants to sync Sasuke with it. What’s interesting is that this hideout is pretty much something that only Madara and his closest associates know about, so I doubt that Pein knew for example. So if the Gedo Mazo was a prisoner or Madara’s pet, then could it really be that Madara was the one who influenced Nagato’s development as a Sage? It’s seems that every little dirty secret, every major event in the world somehow connects back to Madara and his actions, which makes Madara to really grow as a character and a villain, even more if these things get confirmed at some point in the manga.
Another reason why I think that Nagato didn’t know about this place is the fact that this Gedo is the source for something really big, or it covers up something even more important, like this:
Which is pretty creepy by the way. What we are looking at is a living sample of Shodai Hokage, but Madara didn’t recreate just him, he grew a whole plant or tree, it’s still difficult to tell. Madara tells us that this Shodai has no mind of its own, because it’s just a collection of Shodai’s cells, and since Shodai was able to create life, it’s only normal that a collection of nurtured cells would create life as well. If we take a closer look at the panels, we can see that this plant or branch, whatever connects to something that is similar to the leaves Gedo Mazo was sitting on, which makes me think that Shodai is somewhat related to Gedo Mazo, or that crystal which Naruto broke not a long time ago.
My theory is that Gedo Mazo is just a poor being that has the ability to suck out the souls or the spiritual energy of its victims. Why I say spiritual energy? Well I remembered Tayuya’s ghosts, who fed on the physical energy of the victim, and as it was explained, they were spiritual beings, which lacked physical energy and in order to create balance they craved for physical energy.
Gedo Mazo is a being with high concentration of physical energy, and for the sake of creating balance, he feeds on the spiritual energy of other beings.
But Akatsuki needed to prepare Gedo Mazo in order to seal the Bijuu, not just extract them and this is how they did it. Madara connected or infused Gedo Mazo with Shodai’s cells and used Shodai’s ability to control/suppress Bijuus to seal the beasts inside the statue. Of course something like this would need huge amount of Shodai charka, but seeing the length of that plant I think Madara has plenty of it.
Returning to Zetsu and the role he has in all this, well this is something astonishing, not unexpected, but still the amount is surprising.
A hundred thousand white Zetsus are shown beneath the space Madara and the rest are standing. We can notice that there are huge roots keeping the place together, and which probably aided to the construction of all these clones. Madara admits that he used a significant amount of the Bijuu’s chakra stored in the statue, so I think we can safely assume that the Shodai plant is like a production line. The energy source being the chakra from Gedo Mazo, the Shodai plant is used to create all these white clones, so in conclusion white Zetsu also possesses genetic information of Hashirama, hence the reason why Kabuto would be pleased to experiment on Zetsu as well, instead of Yamato.
The structure of this cave is also interesting. As we can see Kabuto is looking straight through the water at those clones, and if we take a look at the pic with the Zetsu, we can see a hatch like structure were the roots unite. In reality that long corridor where the Shodai plant can be seen in the water together with our happy three friends is that hatch like thing, so comparing the panels one can hardly imagine the actual size of that underground cave, which could harbor 100k Zetsus.
But all those clones look pretty lifeless, no wonder, because they are created from the mindless Shodai plant. But still we’ve seen white Zetsu speaking and acting on his own. I think the mystery of black Zetsu is the key here. He should be a being with a conscious mind who was merged with white Zetsu in order to make use of plant no jutsu and cloning ability. So the real person is black Zetsu who at some point became Madara’s ally, and white Zetsu is just an implant, but the lifeforce of Shodai’s cells made it possible for white Zetsu to leech on the personality of black and develop another one of his own. In a similar way Orochimaru’s cells and the way Danzou’s implant worked.
So this is it, a little information about the villain’s plans is revealed. And even if it was only a couple of pages worth of information, it’s still a huge amount considering the previous hints and bits of info from the past.
So Kabuto is on his way to Naruto and co. and the clone army is ready to face the alliance, pretty good development for the war, but let’s not forget that the Alliance is getting prepare as well.
On the island things are getting a bit complicated, because Bee didn’t manage to catch the shark the ran away with the info, so this means that the current location of the Jinchuuriki and the plans of the alliance were revealed. On the island Gai is experiencing excruciating pain as the after effects from using the 7th gate are finally kicking in. Yamato explains that his muscle fibers are ripped apart, and that every touch means huge pain for good ol’ Gai-sensei. These moments are bit funny, but in the same time it reveals that Gai is out of the combat for a very long time, he will probably miss the war as well. What’s interesting though, is the fact that Naruto was sent here on a mission to inspect the ecology of the island, but we know that Naruto came here for meeting Bee. So it’s not just he doesn’t even know what is the official reason of him being on the island in the first place, but he has no clue of the war that is brewing outside the island. But the most interesting thing is just yet to be discovered and this piece of information is offered to us by Motoi and Gai’s summon.
After Gai used his turtle as a further jump point towards Kisame, the poor animal landed near a family member. Meet Turtle Island:
I cannot help to notice the impressive art done by Kishi, Similar with the page with the Zetsu army this panel is also a jewel of this chapter. The details, the design of the turtle makes this island very impressive, and it somehow recreates the tropical feel even more, similar to Myoubokuzan.
It is revealed that this animal is an ancient one that has been in the care of the people from Kumogakure. Despite the clear signs of it being an ancient creature, the turtle still considers itself a hatchling, so I imagine there was a very impressive wildlife before shinobi appeared, much like our dino age.
This means that Naruto and co. are pretty well hidden, because the island is continuously on the move and as Raikage explains us, it can only be seen from the clouds. Raikage is also the one who accounted for the possibility of the island being discovered, so he already plotted to course for a next location. Pretty impressive action from Raikage, considering the amount of confidence in the island’s stealth abilities.
The place where Raikage and the other Kages and Mifune are is pretty similar to Kumo as I take it from the design of the buildings. This means that the Alliance main HQ is in Kumo, and it harbors no less than 80000 shinobi, who will be deployed in the war. That’s a pretty high number, considering the general idea of the population of a village. Considering the battles so far, we got the idea that only a handful a shinobis live in the village, but it turns out that the average population turns out to be around 17 to 20 thousand. But this is just the shinobi, not counting regular villagers who have nothing to do with fighting.
Analyzing the structure of the institutions in let’s say the Fire Country then we know that the country has one source of man power. And that is the village, which enables centralization and separate leardership for the shinobi. Considering that most of the shinobi that exist as part of a village are away on missions, and I must admit that the Land of Fire is pretty big, then this number, as much as it is a surprise for many people, it can easily be realistic from the POV of the Narutoverse shown so far. There was a huge number of people when Naruto returned, same when Gaara returned, so I think these numbers are not impossible, judging of course from what the manga has shown us until now.
And let’s not forget that Genin are shinobi as well, and they will take part of the war efforts as well, I guess, even if that will mean not so dangerous missions. Also 80k shinobi doesn’t mean that actually 80k will fight. Recon teams, shock groups, main assault forces, spies, defense force, people responsible of supplies are all part of this 80k.
As the Kages agree that Madara won’t attack the HQ, they discuss the possibility of sending some reinforcement to the island, and in the end with some comic relief, Gaara takes his sand and prepares for the road. Basically he will fly on his sand and reach the island, because it can only be seen from the clouds. The interesting thing is that Tsuchikage volunteered first to go there, and Tsunade agreed by mentioning that his ability to fly will be really useful in getting there fast. FLY?...well we’ve seen a glimpse of it when he attacked Sasuke, but it is revealed that he can actually fly great distances. Until this ability’s secret is revealed I can’t do anything but guess, that his flying is similar to the tree-walk and the water-walk exercises, but done on air-particles, which denotes insane chakra control. We cannot exclude a wind jutsu either, but I lean towards chakra control and walking on air or dust particles.
The intuition of sending reinforcements will really pay off, because Kabuto also plans to go to the island by air, using Deidara and his bird as vessel.
A very good cliffhanger, especially after a chapter that revealed soo much. The pace is really good, but Kishi deciced to show is multiple places at once, which makes the next chapters, pretty hard to predict.
Quick summary/Opinion
Lots of revelations in this chapter, and very detailed and top-notch art from Kishimoto. Lots of observations this time from me as well, which probably makes this review a liiittle bit longer
. Kabuto’s plans, Madara’s plans, Alliance plans were revealed here, and all the parties are on the move to give their best in the upcoming conflict. This makes the chapter a very good one, with lots of plot development, and even certain characters are slowly showing their true skin.
So a little bit of character development is present as we, mainly those of the villain force.
The minus of this chapter is the lack of fighting, which is important for an action manga, but we must see that building up the plot is as important as showing the character’s strength and development. That’s why this chapter gets 8/10 from me, as it provides lots of information, lots of spectacular revelations, very good art, but the lack of fighting and the little character development is a bit of a drag. Nonetheless a very good chapter, and the reason I like this chapter a lot, is because the good amount of theories that can be created after reading it.
Predictions/Want to happen
What I would like in the next chapter(s) is for Kishi to not change his style and provide us information from both Madara’s side and the Alliance as well. The pace has been pretty good so far, so Kabuto arriving on the island, together with Gaara would be a good point as well. The last card from Madara’s deck, Sasuke is yet to be shown, but I hope this time he stays away for a while, because Madara has been getting lots of precious attention lately, and the war should start any time now.
This is it folks. After a long break, I hope this wasn't disappointing, and I'd be glad if my review served as clarification or maybe gave new ideas. If there are new ideas please don't hesitate to share them with us, and this being a long review, I might've left out some stuff, so share that as well. Big thanks for Binktopia for their high quality scans, and thanks to you guys for being patient and reading this.
SHANNARO! It's good to be back
...
Mata ne!
It’s been a pretty long time and I missed the reviews and I missed talking to people here, so here’s one for you guys and one for the reviews. Cheers!
Being away for I think 5 weeks now means that I missed a few things, though my comments did surface once in a while. There were some pretty notable changes in the plot of the manga, some expected, some not, so I decided to quickly review the most important aspects.
The first one of course is the death of Kisame, who was among my favorite characters mostly, because of his behavior, which is in contradiction with his reputation as monster of the Hidden Mist. His resolve to never give up, and to detach himself from the lies of this world gave birth to good news for Madara as Kisame managed in the end to send the scroll with the information about the alliance and the hiding place of the Jinchuuriki. His resolve is even more interesting, because Madara is actually trying to create a world based on an illusion, basically a lie from the perspective of the people living in the current reality of Narutoverse. So this is somewhat a contradiction, but you know a lie is pretty much defined depending on which side are you, and even more reality is really just a matter a perspective and perception.
The second one is the death of Konan, another shinobi with great resolve to never give up, and a person true to her intentions and relationships. Though this time her death was in the end pretty pointless concerning the plot and the other characters, her fight was pretty entertaining and was a source of new information for us readers. For example Izanagi, the Uchiha jutsu of Yin-Yang manipulation, a manipulation that is the root of all creation in the Narutoverse, then Madara’s phase no jutsu, Madara’s long time plan and info about his battle against Hashirama etc…So in the end it was entertaining, but pretty much useless, but at least Konan demonstrated the fundamentals of shinobi fighting. Gather information, prepare in advance and kill. She did well until Izanagi, but that’s pretty much an unknown jutsu, but her paper-jutsu was pretty impressive, and I was a bit amused by all this talk about how she managed to create that much explosive tags, considering that people can replicate things in great number in a matter of mili-seconds in this manga. It’s not like she had printers at home
.What’s more important though is the similarity of their deaths and the manner they were presented. Kishi picked two characters, an eternal villain, Kisame and a not so eternal villain Konan(we know she changed sides) and presented them in a way that put both of them in a more excusable position, at least this was the intention as I see it. Kisame’s flashbacks and Konan’s recollections served the purpose of showing the shinobi belonging to the old era are pretty much victims of circumstances, like wars for example, and that villains are not really villains, they just stand for their own beliefs. Naruto representing the light, the hope for a new era fits really well into this theme since Part 1 where Naruto decided not to be a victim of circumstances and to stand up on his own, proving the existence and the importance of choices during ones life.
With this Akatsuki was officially dead, but even more dangerous times are ahead as Madara decided to finally target Naruto seriously, which we know from taking out his old dusty fan, but combined with a brand new mask, which is pretty cool by the way.
So let’s see how is Madara planning to do this.
Pretty interesting title I must admit, and I think everyone agrees with me. We all suspected that Zetsu is pretty important if not for anything else then at least for Madara’s survival and repair. He is like the oil for Madara’s old rusty joints.
But this title puts it like there’s something more important about Zetsu, like he is a trump card or something.Let me say this first before we bump into the great secret, that nothing is unexpected about Zetsu. Since the beginning of his appearance and during his slow development, many theories were made in joke or seriously like:Madara will support the war effort with Zetsu clones, or Danzou shoulder looks like Zetsu,so can Shodai be related to him, I mean he’s a plant and Hashirama grew plants etc…It’s interesting how these things, which mostly begin as jokes like the theoryThe ten-tails is sealed in the moon are starting to get shape…I just pray we won’t see a NaruSasu fusion activating Rinnegan in middle of a Susanoo made from sage chakra
.But let’s cut the jokes here for a moment and head towards the actual developments
.
Even if it is the truth about Zetsu, the cover page is with Kabuto, and this time Kishi decided to offer a little info about him.
His true intentions remain unrevealed. When all is said and done, will it be the monster or the serpent that emerges?
Interesting choice of words, which unlocks two possible developments for Kabuto. Though I wonder what are those? When I saw the word monster, I couldn’t help not tot remember the Kabuto with bloody eyes and shiny glasses, who enjoyed violence and was full of bloodlust. I think that is the monster that Kishi is talking about, and combined with his new form, then we might actually see another version of the Great White Snake.
But this could as well be the serpent form as well, but I think this time serpent carries the meaning of being sneaky and intelligent, not using power until it’s absolutely necessary. So when it’s all said and done and Kabuto will face his last opponent will he remain the same slick guy, or will he unleash his anger and power? It depends on the opponent I guess…
So with and interesting title and great cover page and text, somehow Kishi is hinting that Kabuto will contribute to the revealing of the secret of Zetsu, which is no surprise, because if we recall Kabuto’s meeting with Yamato aka Sasori, then we know that cell and tissue sample exchanges were pretty common between Orochimaru and Akatsuki.
Kabuto offers himself to go and capture the remaining Jinchuuriki, and when asked what is he planning, he says that he wants to earn trust…yeah that’s a good one…and he wants to get his hands on Yamato who is a copy of Shodai. This is where I think that Kabuto is slowly showing hints of his original plan, which is not so original by the way. His first target is Yamato, just like Orochimaru’s first target was to create people with Shodai’s ability. Second target is Sasuke, who was targeted by Orochimaru as well, along with Itachi, but what matters is that they are both Uchiha. Remembering that Orochimaru’s goal was to find the origin of ninja techniques, and knowing that this origin was Rikudo Sennin, it’s not so hard to guess that Kabuto wants the same thing Orochimaru wanted and the same thing Madara wants, to recreate Rikudo Sennin, by uniting the two bloodlines of Senju and Uchiha.
With this in mind, probably, Kabuto offers to go hunt down the Jinchuuriki, but I guess the primary target is indeed Yamato. But Kabuto has a backup plan in case things with Yamato won’t go as planned. And the backup plan is Zetsu. Basically Kabuto wants to experiment on Shodai’s cells and Zetsu is closely related to that.
As a token of his trust Madara promises to give Kabuto one Zetsu if he manages to catch Kyuubi. This just means there are more Zetsus, so Kabuto was right when he said that Zetsu is the key to face the Alliance threat.
As Madara begins the tour of his base, they stumble upon Gedo Mazo, which is pretty bad for Madara, because Kabuto lead the Alliance spies exactly to this location, and this really looks like the main HQ of the big bad wolf. We can notice that Gedo Mazo is restrained, probably with a pretty powerful sealing jutsu.
Gedo Mazo first appeared when it was summoned by Pain to extract Ichibi from Gaara. It looked pretty menacing even back then, when it was immobile and just functioned as an extraction tool, but when it was presented the second time in the confrontation against Ame shinobi and Hanzou, it was pretty clear that this statue or thing will have a pretty important role in the story, if not then for the sole fact that it is the container of the bijous that were collected until now.
But now it’s just another tool in Madara’s hands, and this fate was getting shape since he said that he wants to sync Sasuke with it. What’s interesting is that this hideout is pretty much something that only Madara and his closest associates know about, so I doubt that Pein knew for example. So if the Gedo Mazo was a prisoner or Madara’s pet, then could it really be that Madara was the one who influenced Nagato’s development as a Sage? It’s seems that every little dirty secret, every major event in the world somehow connects back to Madara and his actions, which makes Madara to really grow as a character and a villain, even more if these things get confirmed at some point in the manga.
Another reason why I think that Nagato didn’t know about this place is the fact that this Gedo is the source for something really big, or it covers up something even more important, like this:
Which is pretty creepy by the way. What we are looking at is a living sample of Shodai Hokage, but Madara didn’t recreate just him, he grew a whole plant or tree, it’s still difficult to tell. Madara tells us that this Shodai has no mind of its own, because it’s just a collection of Shodai’s cells, and since Shodai was able to create life, it’s only normal that a collection of nurtured cells would create life as well. If we take a closer look at the panels, we can see that this plant or branch, whatever connects to something that is similar to the leaves Gedo Mazo was sitting on, which makes me think that Shodai is somewhat related to Gedo Mazo, or that crystal which Naruto broke not a long time ago.
My theory is that Gedo Mazo is just a poor being that has the ability to suck out the souls or the spiritual energy of its victims. Why I say spiritual energy? Well I remembered Tayuya’s ghosts, who fed on the physical energy of the victim, and as it was explained, they were spiritual beings, which lacked physical energy and in order to create balance they craved for physical energy.
Gedo Mazo is a being with high concentration of physical energy, and for the sake of creating balance, he feeds on the spiritual energy of other beings.
But Akatsuki needed to prepare Gedo Mazo in order to seal the Bijuu, not just extract them and this is how they did it. Madara connected or infused Gedo Mazo with Shodai’s cells and used Shodai’s ability to control/suppress Bijuus to seal the beasts inside the statue. Of course something like this would need huge amount of Shodai charka, but seeing the length of that plant I think Madara has plenty of it.
Returning to Zetsu and the role he has in all this, well this is something astonishing, not unexpected, but still the amount is surprising.
A hundred thousand white Zetsus are shown beneath the space Madara and the rest are standing. We can notice that there are huge roots keeping the place together, and which probably aided to the construction of all these clones. Madara admits that he used a significant amount of the Bijuu’s chakra stored in the statue, so I think we can safely assume that the Shodai plant is like a production line. The energy source being the chakra from Gedo Mazo, the Shodai plant is used to create all these white clones, so in conclusion white Zetsu also possesses genetic information of Hashirama, hence the reason why Kabuto would be pleased to experiment on Zetsu as well, instead of Yamato.
The structure of this cave is also interesting. As we can see Kabuto is looking straight through the water at those clones, and if we take a look at the pic with the Zetsu, we can see a hatch like structure were the roots unite. In reality that long corridor where the Shodai plant can be seen in the water together with our happy three friends is that hatch like thing, so comparing the panels one can hardly imagine the actual size of that underground cave, which could harbor 100k Zetsus.
But all those clones look pretty lifeless, no wonder, because they are created from the mindless Shodai plant. But still we’ve seen white Zetsu speaking and acting on his own. I think the mystery of black Zetsu is the key here. He should be a being with a conscious mind who was merged with white Zetsu in order to make use of plant no jutsu and cloning ability. So the real person is black Zetsu who at some point became Madara’s ally, and white Zetsu is just an implant, but the lifeforce of Shodai’s cells made it possible for white Zetsu to leech on the personality of black and develop another one of his own. In a similar way Orochimaru’s cells and the way Danzou’s implant worked.
So this is it, a little information about the villain’s plans is revealed. And even if it was only a couple of pages worth of information, it’s still a huge amount considering the previous hints and bits of info from the past.
So Kabuto is on his way to Naruto and co. and the clone army is ready to face the alliance, pretty good development for the war, but let’s not forget that the Alliance is getting prepare as well.
On the island things are getting a bit complicated, because Bee didn’t manage to catch the shark the ran away with the info, so this means that the current location of the Jinchuuriki and the plans of the alliance were revealed. On the island Gai is experiencing excruciating pain as the after effects from using the 7th gate are finally kicking in. Yamato explains that his muscle fibers are ripped apart, and that every touch means huge pain for good ol’ Gai-sensei. These moments are bit funny, but in the same time it reveals that Gai is out of the combat for a very long time, he will probably miss the war as well. What’s interesting though, is the fact that Naruto was sent here on a mission to inspect the ecology of the island, but we know that Naruto came here for meeting Bee. So it’s not just he doesn’t even know what is the official reason of him being on the island in the first place, but he has no clue of the war that is brewing outside the island. But the most interesting thing is just yet to be discovered and this piece of information is offered to us by Motoi and Gai’s summon.
After Gai used his turtle as a further jump point towards Kisame, the poor animal landed near a family member. Meet Turtle Island:
I cannot help to notice the impressive art done by Kishi, Similar with the page with the Zetsu army this panel is also a jewel of this chapter. The details, the design of the turtle makes this island very impressive, and it somehow recreates the tropical feel even more, similar to Myoubokuzan.
It is revealed that this animal is an ancient one that has been in the care of the people from Kumogakure. Despite the clear signs of it being an ancient creature, the turtle still considers itself a hatchling, so I imagine there was a very impressive wildlife before shinobi appeared, much like our dino age.
This means that Naruto and co. are pretty well hidden, because the island is continuously on the move and as Raikage explains us, it can only be seen from the clouds. Raikage is also the one who accounted for the possibility of the island being discovered, so he already plotted to course for a next location. Pretty impressive action from Raikage, considering the amount of confidence in the island’s stealth abilities.
The place where Raikage and the other Kages and Mifune are is pretty similar to Kumo as I take it from the design of the buildings. This means that the Alliance main HQ is in Kumo, and it harbors no less than 80000 shinobi, who will be deployed in the war. That’s a pretty high number, considering the general idea of the population of a village. Considering the battles so far, we got the idea that only a handful a shinobis live in the village, but it turns out that the average population turns out to be around 17 to 20 thousand. But this is just the shinobi, not counting regular villagers who have nothing to do with fighting.
Analyzing the structure of the institutions in let’s say the Fire Country then we know that the country has one source of man power. And that is the village, which enables centralization and separate leardership for the shinobi. Considering that most of the shinobi that exist as part of a village are away on missions, and I must admit that the Land of Fire is pretty big, then this number, as much as it is a surprise for many people, it can easily be realistic from the POV of the Narutoverse shown so far. There was a huge number of people when Naruto returned, same when Gaara returned, so I think these numbers are not impossible, judging of course from what the manga has shown us until now.
And let’s not forget that Genin are shinobi as well, and they will take part of the war efforts as well, I guess, even if that will mean not so dangerous missions. Also 80k shinobi doesn’t mean that actually 80k will fight. Recon teams, shock groups, main assault forces, spies, defense force, people responsible of supplies are all part of this 80k.
As the Kages agree that Madara won’t attack the HQ, they discuss the possibility of sending some reinforcement to the island, and in the end with some comic relief, Gaara takes his sand and prepares for the road. Basically he will fly on his sand and reach the island, because it can only be seen from the clouds. The interesting thing is that Tsuchikage volunteered first to go there, and Tsunade agreed by mentioning that his ability to fly will be really useful in getting there fast. FLY?...well we’ve seen a glimpse of it when he attacked Sasuke, but it is revealed that he can actually fly great distances. Until this ability’s secret is revealed I can’t do anything but guess, that his flying is similar to the tree-walk and the water-walk exercises, but done on air-particles, which denotes insane chakra control. We cannot exclude a wind jutsu either, but I lean towards chakra control and walking on air or dust particles.
The intuition of sending reinforcements will really pay off, because Kabuto also plans to go to the island by air, using Deidara and his bird as vessel.
A very good cliffhanger, especially after a chapter that revealed soo much. The pace is really good, but Kishi deciced to show is multiple places at once, which makes the next chapters, pretty hard to predict.
Quick summary/Opinion
Lots of revelations in this chapter, and very detailed and top-notch art from Kishimoto. Lots of observations this time from me as well, which probably makes this review a liiittle bit longer
. Kabuto’s plans, Madara’s plans, Alliance plans were revealed here, and all the parties are on the move to give their best in the upcoming conflict. This makes the chapter a very good one, with lots of plot development, and even certain characters are slowly showing their true skin. So a little bit of character development is present as we, mainly those of the villain force.
The minus of this chapter is the lack of fighting, which is important for an action manga, but we must see that building up the plot is as important as showing the character’s strength and development. That’s why this chapter gets 8/10 from me, as it provides lots of information, lots of spectacular revelations, very good art, but the lack of fighting and the little character development is a bit of a drag. Nonetheless a very good chapter, and the reason I like this chapter a lot, is because the good amount of theories that can be created after reading it.
Predictions/Want to happen
What I would like in the next chapter(s) is for Kishi to not change his style and provide us information from both Madara’s side and the Alliance as well. The pace has been pretty good so far, so Kabuto arriving on the island, together with Gaara would be a good point as well. The last card from Madara’s deck, Sasuke is yet to be shown, but I hope this time he stays away for a while, because Madara has been getting lots of precious attention lately, and the war should start any time now.
This is it folks. After a long break, I hope this wasn't disappointing, and I'd be glad if my review served as clarification or maybe gave new ideas. If there are new ideas please don't hesitate to share them with us, and this being a long review, I might've left out some stuff, so share that as well. Big thanks for Binktopia for their high quality scans, and thanks to you guys for being patient and reading this.
SHANNARO! It's good to be back
...Mata ne!
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