Naruto 526 review...

benelori · Feb 4, 2011

Hello, hello, dear members and lurkers! It's a pleasure to come forth with another review this week, carrying the hope that next week, the ball will start rolling and action will commence.

Chapter 526 is the other side of the same coin that has chapter 525. Why is that? Well last week the focus was how the good guys react to the bad guys, and the results were different, but mainly negative emotions such as fear, anger. This week Kishimoto decided to do the same thing, present us how the good guys will react after the first impression. So the theme is almost the same, with the small difference that this time, instead of fear and anger, the overwhelming emotions are courage, determination, concentration. A pretty good cocktail of useful emotions in a battle.

I understand from the title that Darui's division will be focused on, but not just this chapter, but also the following weeks as well. Considering that the Alliance's battle plan is to converge most of the forces towards Darui, this is a very probable scenario.
And the whole squad leaps into the battle as well, which means that the "NPCs" of the manga, such as Chouza, Hiashi, Tenten and of course Darui should also fight a bit.

However the chapter begins with the other side of the war, which was introduced last week. It seems like, the war doesn't mean just the battle of the main divisions, but it also means underhanded tactics, hostage situations etc. In this spirit Zetsu is being ordered to search and target the daimyous. To what end? It's still unknown, but if you are curious of certain scenarios, the you can definitely visit last week's review(ad over

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It certainly won't be an easy struggle, because as we can see from the first panels of the chapter our lovely Mizukage is there. Now a Mizukage Zetsu re-match would be really entertaining and interesting, so I guess the first panels of the manga are having some results in pumping this chapter up.

The panel I chose however is a majestic snapshot of Zetsu leaping towards his goal on the rooftops. But this majestic panel has more downsides, then cool stuff. Let me mention the cool stuff first.
We know that Zetsu has legs, and his speed is pretty good, as suggested by the art, he also shows human sides, as he has toes and regular shinobi footwear. So that is interesting and cool, because we get another side of Zetsu, some hints, which are welcome, because he is probably more mysterious than Madara himself. And the fact that he is talking about himself in 3rd person doesn't help much in solving the mystery that he is either

The downsides are the following: the first is a question, which is why not a second arm as well, if he can grow a foot. I'm not sure if a second arm would actually benefit his jutsu style, and of course the design is more interesting, but still the question is there. The second downside is somewhat related to the first. If the jutsu style doesn't require hands, then please dear Zetsu use your jutsu style! :yelling

. Which is stealth information gathering etc. It was an unpleasant surprise that he fell for a tactic that can be considered as similar to what Konohamaru used to track Naruto on the streets of Konoha back in Part 1. Of couse he managed to escape, because Zetsu and his abilities are cool, but nonetheless it was still a mishap for me.

Now what really happened is explained by Mizukage. The daimyous are kept together, the daymous of the main countries and they have prepared 5 locations to move them at well determined intervals. The scenes are not so clear, but let's assume that the Frost country daimyous are there as well, and they already started moving. We see that Raidou and Genma are also preparing to leave. For the sake of the discussion I'm going to build further on my assumption and comment on why is good to have the daimyous together. It's simple...because this way they avoid splittingup the main bodyguard force. let's say the feudal lords are separated. It's much easier for Zetsu to capture one, maybe the use the hostage to get the rest, or just slowly carving ahead and make the wanted damage. I think the Alliance's strategy is good and keeping the daimyous together is even better. Of course until Kishimoto decides to place them in separate locations for the plot to progress. :amuse

However it seems like Zetsu is commenting on how the Alliance underestimates him.

Let's not look at the panel first and avoid noticing the big statement. let's just comment on Zetsu's observations. The poor guy is always underestimated. He was trolled my Madara in the past, of course the reason was obvious. Again he says that he is being underestimated again, but judging from the Alliance's strategy that is hardly the case. Those defenses and puppets that were set up, weren't actually there to catch him. Of course it had been better if that would've been the case, but that was just a decoy. Success or not the Alliance is still in advantage, because they avoided damage. And of course who wouldn't underestimate a shinobi who doesn't use his main abilities, especially in Zetsu's case, where infiltration and stealth is something to be feared -_-;

So I dare say that Zetsu was the one who underestimated the Alliance here, but no worries, he is the land itself as we can read on the panel. It's certainly an interesting ability, it seems like he is literally the land as he is shown, for the n-th time, merging with it. So I hope that Zetsu will finally show what he is really made of, and show us the same guy who observed Itachi vs. Sasuke without being spotted(?).

Before we finish with this first part of the chapter, which was an unsuccessful hype of Zetsu, I would like to point out a bit of a major fault in the Alliance's strategy. What if half of the Zetsu army would've bursted through the castles and attacked the daiymous. From what've seen, 5 puppets and some no name shinobi won't help that much, and even moving around the Daimyous is a bit risky in such as situation. Of course in the case of the Zetsu army, which can be spotted , I think the sensors would've picked them up, if they would've gone in that direction, but it's still not enough, because the risk they're willing to take:the daimyou's lives. Which can be considered expandable if they are as useless as they seem(debating medals and such), but of course they wield large amounts of political power, so :darn

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But let's move out to better places, and see how Darui kicks some Zetsu ass. It seems like Darui inherited 3rd Raikage's secret techniques and he uses black lightning, in the form of a Panther. Of course who are familiar with another manga, maybe Chocolove popped in for a little bit, but let's leave aside that said manga, and focus on what we have.
Darui aims at the water, which is not a surprise, we know he is smart and he did this before, when he faced Sasuke. It seems that water conducts electricity, but only those who are not lightning element-based are affected. The jutsu us huge, the Zetsus fall in great numbers, but they are still much more to come.
The first charge is led by Kakuzu, who is a powerful guy, and that's why I'm wondering why is he so obedient. Or did Kabuto kill his personality as well? It's rather unclear at this point.

We are shown the future match-ups, which were a bit easy to predict in this scenario. Chouza vs Dan and Asuma was the only fight that wasn't so obvious, but using the infamous elimination technique, we could certainly rule out the Hyuuga brothers and the Kumo shinobi. I love the interactions between characters. Dan is noticing how big Chouza got, but the reply is awesome and we know that it means: Baika no jutsu.
Focusing on this match up a bit, we can notice certain things. First is that Dan is familiar with Chouza, but I guess if the Ino-Shika-Chou combo is infamous and Dan was loved and he aimed for Hokageship, then they certainly know each other's names at least. But it would be interesting if Dan were his past sensei or something.
The other thing is the match-up itself. Chouza is facing his kids sensei as well, so nice convo and character development can be born at some time. Let's hope Kishimoto will exploit this match-up to its fullest.

Let's move on and watch Hiashi vs Hizashi for a moment here. The head and branch family conflict is being mentioned again, but this time, it's more like a regret that they ended fighting each other.

What was a bit disturbing to me, even if I know that status is important in this society, that instead of dwelling on the fact that they are brothers and they have to fight each other to the death, they are mentioning main and branch family. Though I guess in the context where parents are more focused on their children, this can be explained a bit.
This family conflict has been reduced to protecting each other as comrades and it's perfectly represented by Hinata saving Neji in the battle. So the message is clear, there's no such thing as fate. The same thing that Neji was told and he learned it pretty well. Unfortunately there's a bit comical side to this situation. Neji and Hiashi were kind of influenced by Naruto in this fate thing, and while it seems that this is true for the Hyuuga, in Naruto's case this theme was pretty much obliterated in the past arcs.

Let's leave them to their battles and concentrate on somewhere else. And that is some squad. We have in basic manga order, Chuukichi, Kimimaro, Chiyo and Hanzou the man of all men

. And they are facing the ambush squad. Poor fellows. I don't know what will Kishimoto do with this sitation, but at least Kankurou is smart enough to realize these guys are too much. I don't know how much does he know about these guys, particularly Kimimaro and Hanzou, but he decides to retreat. This is where things will probably get more complicated. If Kankurou chooses to back down towards Kakashi, then we might see Kakashi surpassing the old generation by defeating Hanzou :zomg

. And he won't just surpass the Sannins themselves, but he will also surpass his father, who was said to be as powerful as Orochimaru and co.

Sorry for my fangasm, let's return...

The conversation is very funny, Hanzou shows that he isn't skilled just with jutsus and combat, he can pawn through words as well. He quickly catcher poor Deidara off guard and renders him silent.
Chiyo somehow knows that Kankurou defeated Sasori, which I don't know why, so I'm going to pose this as first main question of the review. How the hell does Chiyo know this?

Locations change in a quick manner, which is successfully creating the feeling that the war is indeed going on on all fronts. Kitsuchi's division is being mobilized, and Oonoki arrives to aid Gaara.

The conversation is quick, and both of them are playing the smart ass role. Gaara charges first with some poking words, and an attitude that would make you think that he was Kage before Oonoki, but the old man didn't fall from the moon yesterday, and he remembers his old vigorous self. Which is good, since having an old guy like him getting pumped up means destruction(see his battle against Deidara).

I don't know what is the hype level of certain characters, but if I may then I'd say that Gaara's and Oonoki's fight is one of the most anticipated. And trust me it is a tough league.

But I think in this chapter, the winner is clearly Darui, in terms of hype of course. He shows up for the second time in the chapter, and he is facing Kinkaku and Ginkaku. He is looking pretty calm, and I suppose he knows that these guys have some Kyuubi chakra in them. The brothers also recognize him as an inheritor of 3rd Raikage's techniques. But they are doing this by noticing the tattoo on his arm. I think that this tattoo thing is similar to what is going on in Konoha with let's say Nara clan hairstyle, Inuzuka face paint. They symbolize the clan or the type of jutsu they use.
In this case the rather peculiar lightning kanji(it can be seen that it's only similar it's not the exact kanji) means that he uses black lightning among his techniques. So I guess that if one has two tattoos, like Darui does it means that there is a Kekkei Genkai involved in this case Storm release or Ranton. So he must be exceptional if he was worthy of such tattoos, so he is definitely receiving insane amounts of hype, not to mention his entire attitude: ima bust UR gol'n silver platings, yeah!

So yeah, it was a pretty good chapter, but I would've wished that some battles would've been shown. But I guess this was just a launching pad, and next week the banzai will start.

Overview:

Clearly, the characters were the main focus of this chapter as well. But this time, the development itself was 0, but at least some of the characterization was there, each situation giving us a picture of these characters do what they do best(aside from fighting).
This characterization can be related to the core idea of the chapte, which is the same as last week.But this time the good guys rocked and they were the ones that receive hype. That's why I said at the beginning that chapter 526 and 525 are the sides of the same coin, which is the reaction of the Alliance at the sight of Edo Tensei, the main villain until now.
I would say there was no particular focus on a character, like we had during Zabuza vs Kakashi, even if the title mentioned Darui as the key character of the chapter and we had some interesting Hyuuga action and some funny scenes involving the daimyous and DeidaraxHanzou.
Darui is indeed the king of hype this time, but I think it is overpowered by the fail that was Zetsu. So I think in this chapter the area called character development/characterization was punished by Zetsu.

The structure of the chapter was really good. Aside from the core idea, we can notice that quick location changes that are giving the overwhelming feeling of dynamic developments, and that the war is going on each front, involving everybody. Another good technique can be noticed, and the protagonist is Zetsu this time. Kishimoto used these quick panel changes to beautifully build up the tension among the feudal lords and the attacking Zetsu. It really felt like Zetsu was on spot, so it was nice noticing this, and I hope we will see such techniques with higher frequency in the future.

Za plot...well...this area can be confused with still waters on a beautiful summer night :darn

. The only noteworthy thing is that we got to see were the match-ups. Of course Kishimoto starting building up this whole stand-off situation since Muu appeared, so he was really preparing to set up the matches, finishing this build up sequence with 525, and 526 which I like to consider to be in one bundle.
What can be noticed, though but it's so subtle that it took me a bit to notice it, while I was searching for SOMETHING to be included as plot-development. And I noticed that the slow flow of the plot can be referred to as the flow and movements of the Alliance forces. How? Well Kitsuchi is going to move out soon, which will create new match-ups, new situations, to which we might see a counter from either Madara or Kabuto. We also have some few panels with Kankurou and co. They will retreat, which is based on the same idea as before. New match-ups, news situations, maybe some important death here and there. So this continuous movement of these people makes the plot go forward bit by bit. And that is the main reason I was disappointed in Zetsu. Aside from his fail tactics, his story, which started out to be interesting was stopped in full force, without any challenging cliffhanger, or even some positive result.

The action itself was a bit down, although we did have some enchanges in the end. That's understandable, because this was a transition or buildup chapter. Nonetheless, some nice jutsu(s) were shown, and another part of the Alliance's war strategy, this time a defensive one.

The art was pretty good, so I will give maximum points in this department. A nice double-spread with the Black Panther, and lots of closeups of the faces of characters who got some focus. Each of these closeups had great detail and it was a pleasure to see them: Hiashi, Oonoki, Darui are the ones worth mentioning, reason which I chose those exact panels in the breakdown of the chapter.

7.5/10 this time, it's not a bad mark, don't bash me, but if you disagree, then please mention why. So this is the second question of this review:
Do you agree with the mark?

We are slowly getting to the end of the review. Please answer the questions, or just comment on the chapter, do whatever you like

(I'm not forcing anyone to post...yeah right :yelling

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Thanks to Binktopia for the chapter, it's a pleasure using your scans in my reviews :kukuku

About the poll: I didn't want to explain there, so I will do it now. The reason why you can see those names shown twice, is because the higher bracket is the ones whom you think are the most hyped, and the lower bracket you can choose the least hyped people. It's probably hard, I know...so don't forget it's a multiple choice poll so you can click UR least fav and most fav characters. I didn't list all the characters, I preferred to break down these events by location. So if your a Muu fan, the U will probably click Gaara/Oonoki/Muu, because that location is the one that has Muu involved in the upcoming fight. If UR a Zetsu hater, then just click Zetsu :amuse

And for the sake of discussion, you could mention the reasons, maybe point out that you love Muu but you hate Gaara, so you didn't voet or something like this or just make a hype-ranking list from these characters.

Thanks for following me through this review and the confusing poll explanation, see you around o/
Mata ne!

narutoaged · Feb 4, 2011