Naruto Chapter 496 – Kyuubi Needs a Diet

Post Author: Bob

Hey guys, the week of waiting is over and we’re finally onto chapter 496 where Naruto begins his showdown with the big bad fox. I breathed a sigh of relief this chapter because things are finally picking up after what I perceived as the mishandling of the evil Naruto face-off and Motoi’s somewhat lame back story. I also liked that Kishi has also been kicking it up a notch with the funnies, even in these serious situations. This week’s gag with the headhless Naruto bit really had me chuckling, I hope to see Yamato get punked more in the future, lol.

If you thought Killer Bee’s language was bad last chapter, the translator (of Mangastream) really went all out in this chapter. Not that I’m complaining, I really like this Samuel L Jackson take on KB’s personality; but at the same time, I got to wonder how much tamer the original Japanese version is. Naruto’s gag this week was pretty hilarious. It really brought back memories of the younger Naruto of the past and reminds us that even though he has matured a lot since then, some of his prankster nature will always be here to stay. Some might argue that having these funny episodes during such an important time in Naruto’s training takes away from the seriousness of the situation, but I say it only proves how brave and determined Naruto is because it takes courage to still smile and laugh while staring death straight in the eye. Oh, and for the curious, those headless statues I think are based off of similar Buddha statues found in temples at places like Sri Lanka. They’re headless because looters and the like hacked them off to sell on the black market since it’s too heavy to steal the entire statue.

It seems like a lot of popular shonen manga these days have featured something similar to DBZ’s hyperbolic time chamber, and Naruto is no exception. The temple behind the waterfall looks very ancient, and according to KB, it seems to have been constructed specifically to training Jinchuuriki. It’s essentially a huge Bijuu vault that allows a host to confront the tailed beast but has the safety feature of sealing the beast inside the temple if the host fails to control the beast. I would be really impressed if it turned out Kumogakure built the temple specifically to tame tailed beasts after when the First Hokage sealed and distributed the Bijuu amongst the major villages. But the ancient construction and aged look of the whole place makes me think that the temple existed before that period. To think that Kumogakure to have such a facility at its disposal for so long really puts into perspective how much of an advantage they had over the other villages over the years. Think about it, they essentially had the ability to make as many attempts to create Jinchuuriki as they can in relative safety, so long as they can recapture the Bijuu whenever it overpowered its current host. In comparison, other villages like Konoha and Suna had to rely on more time-consuming, primitive and dangerous methods like sealing their Bijuu into newborns or a developing fetus in order to have any success at containing the tailed beast in a host. Kumo on the other hand, can hand pick and train their host candidate each time and easily replace them if they fail. It makes me wonder why Konoha, which was founded by the man who could tame the Bijuu, did not create a similar if not better facility for themselves.

Naruto’s battle for dominance against the Kyuubi was quite a sight to see, but I was expecting a little more build up before we got to this point. As I see it, this is one of the more important battles in Naruto’s life and something us readers have been anxious to see for a long time. That said, I was expecting Kishi to really to built up the tension and maybe throw down a really dramatic cliffhanger before we got to the meat of the battle. Speaking of meat, kisuzachi mentioned in the comments that Kyuubi looks like he put on a little weight in this chapter, and I tend to agree. I guess being stuck in a cage inside a boy who eats greasy ramen all the time would make anyone put on the pounds, even a Bijuu, but I can’t help but think it makes the Nine-Tails a lot less intimating than we’ve seen him in the past. It also has to do with the way Kishi depicted Kyuubi in this chapter — we’re used to seeing close-ups of Kyuubi’s eyes and snarling teeth, but seeing his whole body drawn like this makes him more like a big, furry, grouchy and overweight fox. I have every confidence that Naruto will succeed in taming the Kyuubi, or at least coming to some kind of compromise, especially with KB literally helping him out along the way. But after all the fighting is done and Kyuubi becomes an ally, Naruto really needs to put that fox on a diet.