Naruto Chapter 699 & 700 – It Finally Ends

Post Author: Kisuzachi

Hello, Narutards/Shannarites/WhateveritIsWeCallOurselves. It is I, your favorite guy that posts ramblings, The Author Formerly Known As Kisuzachi, or Kisu for short. It is with great joy not-exactly elation, and not-exactly regret that I say that these were the final chapters of the Naruto manga (nobody’s gonna read that spinoff!). The work of making chapter discussions was in Bob’s court, but since he’s been gone for the last two years, I think it’s time I take a shot at this. Feelings about what Naruto has become in terms of quality aside, I feel it is at least in order to give it a final farewell, because if not for this manga I wouldn’t have found this great community.

Chapter starts with Kakashi and Sakura swooping in to the see the ragged and tired bodies which was the aftermath of two men that have just finished pounding each other’s butts faces. Rather than recapping every single detail of the chapter, I’d instead like to take this time to reflect on the characters. The character that stood out most to me in this chapter was—not Sasuke, Naruto or Kakashi—Sakura. Just… she is just the complete opposite of a heroine. I recall in 2012 Kishimoto said he would make her more heroic, but what has she done this entire Arc? She had a moment where she said she wouldn’t be seeing Naruto and Sasuke’s backs anymore, but immediately after saying that they had to save her from Juubi spawn because she turned back to look at them. Chapters before that she let Neji die because she didn’t want to save him, for some reason. She claims she’d been storing chakra in her crystal, so why was it that it was conveniently completed the moment Sasuke showed up? Just take a little chakra from it and save Neji’s life. Anyway, back to this chapter. The chapter draws to a close with Sakura asking to tag along with Sasuke again, showing she’s still the same lovestruck idiot girl that she was back when she was twelve years old. I do find it oddly appropriate that Sasuke poked her forehead like Itachi often did to him, because he’s tortured the girl as much as Itachi did him. But yes, Sakura completes the cycle of going nowhere in terms of character development. Possibly one of the worst characters in the manga. But hey, at least she got what she always wanted: being Sasuke’s housewife.

There’s a timeskip in the chapter where Kakashi is made Hokage after Tsunade retires. This leads to what I feel is the most important page of the chapter. Sasuke is apparently pardoned for his crimes because of his efforts in helping to stop the Eternal Tsukuyomi… and he accepts the pardon. This is why Sasuke is an awful human being. Who was it that gave Obito Killerbee’s chakra? Sasuke. Who was it that aided Obito in even getting to this point? Sasuke. All he did was help clean up the mess he himself caused. Any decently-written atoner would’ve faced their punishment, whatever it was, and then spend the rest of their life making up for whatever crimes they committed. What about the families of the samurai Sasuke slaughtered? Do they not have a right to justice? We see in Chapter 700 that he’s willing to pull out his sword on what he suspects is someone, so from that we know he’s willing to defend himself. Would one of the kids who’s fathers he killed have been slaughtered by Sasuke for trying to get justice for their dead parents? Nobody on Earth save Naruto can even hope to oppose him. He has the Rinnegan. If he truly wanted to pay for his actions, he’d give up his life to revive everyone that died.

Then there’s his redemption, which was equally as hackneyed as most things from this arc. “Oops, lost a fight. Guess I’m sorry for all the stuff I did now. And I can even stand Sakura’s presence!” Why did Nagato change? It wasn’t him losing a fight: it was because Naruto reminded him of what he once was. Why did Gaara change? Because he saw Naruto didn’t turn out like he did, etc. Sasuke has been offered at least 4 chances to change in this half of the manga alone and he’s turned them down every single time, but all it takes to change his mind about everything is losing a fight?

And now for the final part of this: Chapter 700: The Shippening. Yeah, I’ve never been too big on the shipping thing. I just don’t care which characters end up together, especially when those characters aren’t particularly interesting. There’s a trope called “Pair the Spares,” which sums up this ending quite aptly. Every leftover character that Kishimoto didn’t bother to develop, or didn’t adequately develop got flung together. Honestly, this chapter, apart from setting up a sequel is pretty pointless. What instead it should’ve been devoted to things like:

1. How has the world’s economy and politics been affected in the aftermath of the Fourth Ninja War that killed half of the world’s population of ninja in one day.

2. The abolition of the ninja system. We spent a large chunk of this manga talking about how bad it is, and how it produces Obitos and Madaras, yet it’s still the system being glorified in these chapters. Kids are still child soldiers, and there’s still ninja villages. If not the abolition, at least tell us how it’s changed or improved.

3. Naruto’s answer to Pain’s question from Chapter 436. How will Naruto bring peace to the world? Contrary to what the manga tries to say in its later stages, hate isn’t the only reason people go to war. Pain explained that they war for reasons like land or money.

4. Why is Neji still dead?

Though to be honest, this is the best ending we could’ve hoped for considering what had come before. I do this review not out of love for this manga, because there is none left in me. I do this out of love and respect for the Shannaro community. I do this to honor the memories I have of having extensive debates with Mart/walmart. I do this for memories of showing up here every Friday to read Bob’s reviews. I do this because of memories of the times where there was user-generated content ranging from a Naruto gameshow, to extensive theories, to the group posts Bob would sometimes set up, to massively creative fanfics daily. Naruto may be over, but the memories I have from this place will last a lifetime (at least somewhere in my brain). Thank you all for reading, and thank you all for being a part of the Shannaro community. As a really cool robot once said, stay gold.

Top Failings of the War Arc 3: The Sequel Nobody Asked For

Yes, yes, I know the title is woefully inaccurate. Yes, I know this is a highly anticipated post, and one you’ve all been waiting for with bated breath for over a year: the third part to my “Top Failings of the War Arc” series (second is here). Indeed, this post will be the beacon in the darkness of the void I have left in your hearts. Sit back, rejoice, and bask in my glorious wisdom. Kisu back, yo.

Now, initially I had planned to do this when the series ended. Rumor on the net was that Kishimoto said it would end in 2014, so it was my intention to do one post that chronicled all of the War Arc’s atrocities since the last one, but that was just a mistranslation. Now you get this post. Yay shoddy translators? Regardless, I had intended to include everything that made me cringe in this post, but I have decided just one topic is comprehensive enough to talk about, and is the root of all the problems of this arc. Yes, this post is about the villains.

But before we get to them, let’s talk about a fairly large retcon that put a whole new spin on the series. An unwelcome spin, at that.

YOU SHOULD FEEL SORRY FOR THEM!!!!!!

Evil Brain Chakra

I don’t know if Kishimoto realizes the implications he introduced when he made this as an explanation for the typical douchebaggery the average Uchiha takes part in. See, what this means is the Uchiha are naturally predisposed to being evil. It means that Uchiha freaking out and becoming murder hobos (i.e. wandering ninjas that murder people, like Sasuke or Itachi) isn’t a weird happenstance, but something that should be expected. What this means is: they’re a clan of psychopaths and it is genetic. Now that you have a firm grasp of the Uchiha, let me explain the implications to you.

1. The Massacre was unambiguously a good thing. Why? Because they’re a clan of evil dirtbags. Nobody, and I mean nobody, would object to wiping out an army of Nazzies (well, except him), and we know they at least believed their cause was for the greater good, as misguided and wrong as they were. Meanwhile, the Uchiha are genetically compelled to be evil for evil’s sake.

2. Not genociding them all this time was a product of criminal negligence. If you had the power to kill every Natsee with the press of a button, but didn’t, you’d be as much an accessory to their atrocities as the guns they carried, since you can stop them but choose not to. That’s the Uchihas and Konoha, but worse. Tobirama was the only one smart enough to go “hey, maybe we should keep an eye on this clan of murder hobos,” and Danzo and the modern council were the only ones responsible enough to wipe them all out.

3. The black Zetsu retcon falls flat on its face. Kishimoto wants us to believe he steered them down the wrong path… but that doesn’t fly since we know taking an Uchiha’s lolipop is enough for that Uchiha to go on a murder rampage. Or if an Uchiha’s gradnma died, or if their puppy died, or anything at all that they even barely perceive as a slight against them.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s move on to the villains:

Srsly, not about her

Obitobi aka “The Coolest Guy”

Where do I even begin with this walking disappointment? Okay, I have a brilliant idea, because I’m brilliant.

1. “I’m no one important.” His whole Masked Man phase. What was that even about? Why did he call himself Madara around Zetsu? Zetsu knew who he was! Really, this is the only decent incarnation of Obito. Getting rid of it for what he was to become is a failing in and of itself that could warrant its own post, but I wanna keep this read short and sweet. Not much to say about this beyond “wasn’t as bad as what came after”. Now to talk about what came after.

2. “It isn’t about Rin. THIS IS FOR KILLING RIN!”. This is what replaced The Masked Man. This whiny villain that can’t even make up his goddamn mind about what his motivation is. You could argue that Kishimoto intended him to flip flop to show that the original Obito is still in there somewhere, but that doesn’t work as an excuse for him since all it did was make one member of your big bad triumvirate a joke. Was he determined to bring Rin back in his Tsukuyomi world? Probably not since he couldn’t kill Naruto and Sasuke despite having the powers of the Naruniverse’s equivalent of God… but more on that later.

3. “To me, Obito is the coolest guy!” – Naruto. Right. Obito that murdered Neji in cold blood, showed no apprehension in killing his former sensei and his wife, Hiruzen’s wife, Konan (Obito sure likes killing women: must be because Rin friendzoned him), countless children from the Hidden Mist, thousands of ninjas in the war, and many more offscreen murders. This represents Kishimoto wanting us to think Obito is cool and redeemed… but he really isn’t. He truly, truly isn’t. After all he did he cannot be redeemed as simply as he did there. He committed suicide rather than continuing to fight… but more on that later.

Madara

How could a villain have so much build up, yet amount to such shit? Let me list why:

1. The power scale. Madara and Hashirama are absurdly powerful, to levels that are just stupid. These men can singlehandedly beat Biju and transform the landscape when they fight. Why are they this powerful? How could any clan even continue to exist with these two powerhouses running around? How did Kakuzu or Onoki survive their respective encounters with each? It’s simple, really. Retcons. Kishimoto realized he’d escalated the series to such a degree that the only way to live up to the hype he made for these two was to completely retcon Hashirama and Tobirama vs Sarutobi and inflate their power levels to end of Dragonball (Piccolo vs Goku) levels.

2. How can he do the things he does? The series bends itself backwards to accommodate this character. Why can he break free of Edo Tensei, being used by a ninja that has mastered it beyond anything any before him have, while Tobirama, the man who made it, cannot break free of an inferior Edo Tensei? Why can Madara just pull out people’s eyes and pop ’em into his eye sockets without any medical ninjutsu? Why does Madara have instant mastery over every technique, whether bloodline-related or not (do remember it took Kakashi years to be able to use Kamui to a degree that is less than Obito can)? Because plot, is the answer to all of these.

3. Get to the damn point. When Aizen from Bleach toyed with his opponents and let them live, he had a purpose for it. He needed people strong enough to make him feel fear for his life so he could evolve to further forms of power. He needed this to be able to fight all of Squad 0, so there was a purpose behind his tomfoolery. Madara is not this character. He toyed around with everyone, despite constantly mentioning “it’s time to get this over with.” Since this plan just requires him to activate a jutsu, he could’ve done it at any time, but wasted his efforts playing with his enemies. This is not “cool” or “villainous,” it’s called “being a goddamned idiot”. Kishimoto just needed a way for his characters to not lose to him, and couldn’t think of any so he ended up writing his villain as an incompetent knit.

4. “I still don’t know how i’m going to have Madara defeated” – Kishimoto. That speaks for itself.

“Why am I written so terribly?”

Kaguya

This “character” was introduced as the true final boss, supplanting the one that had been built up since the start of part 2. Before she took center stage as the big bad, she had only been mentioned in passing twice (her debut mention being in 646), and then 33 chapters later, she replaces Madara as big bad. Why? Because Kishimoto couldn’t figure out a way to have Madara lose. However, in doing so he introduced an even more powerful character… that just so happened to be an even bigger goddamned idiot than Madara.

She has the barest of motivations and it doesn’t even make sense. She wants to rule the world and create an army? FOR WHAT? You already rule the world. What, is she gonna take them off into space to fight the Saiyans or something? She had the power to end the fight in a finger flick, but never did it. Finally, and arguably the worst of all, she had absolutely no characterization whatsoever, as she was mute for almost the entirety of the fight, having Black Zetsu do the talking for her. For all you rookie writers out there, this is how to not write a character you mean to be important. Absolutely awful, she was. Really, the most infuriating thing about her is she is yet another character that was too stupid to use her power… but more on that later.

Such a brilliant character design!

Black Zetsu

Why? Just why? His only excuse for living is being a tool to make the Uchiha not be as bad, even though they are, and to make Kaguya be introduced into the plot. He’s just a plot device character and nothing else. An atrocious excuse for a villain. The sheer amount of retcons to justify him and White Zetsu.

Madara: “Black Zetsu is my will and White Zetsu was made from Hashirama!”

Later chapters: “White Zetsu is the result of Infinite Tsukuyomi and Black Zetsu is somehow from Kaguya!”

Never before has there been so many retcons in the same arc to things introduced in that very arc.

Now Let’s Talk About the Elephant in the Room

This is the “more on that later” section.

1. Obito had the power of Shinra Tensei on his side. Shinra Tensei’s power, according to the third databook, is to dispel ninjutsu, and we see Pain do that to the Rasenshuriken multiple times in the fight against Naruto. Naruto and Sasuke’s final attack against him wouldn’t have worked if he just [bleep]ing remembered he could use that.

2. Obito let himself die because he wanted to try to get lucky with Rin, rather than continue fighting. He had the time to run and intercept Kaguya’s bones, and then Kamui away the one fired at Kakashi. Had he remained where he was, he could’ve Kamui’d both bones away instead of wasting time trying to block with his body. He’d proven himself to be valuable to them in the fight as he was the only one that could also hop dimensions. If Kaguya wasn’t mentally damaged, Obito would’ve doomed them all by forgetting how his own powers worked.

3. Kaguya. I mentioned how Kubo gave Aizen a valid reasoning for having to leave his opponents alive, but Kishimoto tried doing it with Kaguya and failed. She wants Naruto and Sasuke’s chakras, but Black Zetsu tells her she doesn’t need it. That one line made the entire final battle utterly pointless. She’s there risking her defeat for something she doesn’t even need.

But let’s operate under the premise that she must have that chakra. All she needs to do is touch them, but she can never get in too close and they try their best not to be caught by her. It sure would be nice if the Rinnegan had a power that somehow sucked people in close to the user. Oh wait… It’s almost like Nagato is the only character that knew how to use the Rinnegan.

Now, what if Kaguya was a competent villain and just wanted to kill them? Well that’s easy too! Trap each of them in a separate dimension and wait for about 60 days. They’d die of hunger and she would be queen of the world. Now, if we factor in that she really wants their chakra, she could instead wait 20 days. They’d be tired, starving and too weak to fight. Boom, you just won.

How did Kaguya lose? She got blindsided by attacks from all angles. How is this even possible when she has the Byakugan? She should’ve seen them coming and be able to react accordingly.

4. Madara. Just use Shinra Tensei, bro. One Shinra Tensei from Pain shattered the bones of all of Naruto’s giant toads. One Shinra Tensei destroyed Konoha. Now imagine a Shinra Tensei boosted by the chakra of the 10 tails. Even before getting the ten tails, he could’ve just dropped meteors on everyone and end it there. Really, Madara had the absolute most ways he could’ve won, but because of stupidity (on both his and Kishimoto’s part) he was unable to.

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In summation, the Naruto War Arc is most impacted negatively by its villains. Its mediocre villains that are incomprehensible to anyone that even critically looks at Naruto for an instant.

Top Failings of the War Arc 2

Post Author: Kisuzachi

A little over a year ago I made a post about the most important failings of this current arc, and over the course of merely a year Kishimoto has topped every gripe I had. Essentially, in comparison to the current failings, last year’s list may actually be winnings, but only in comparison of course. Now, a thing like fails is somewhat subjective, but I think we can all be in agreement when I say some things are objectively bad. I’ll be posting this on my phone, so forgive the lack of colors, I ask.

1. The Villains are too powerful.

It is a common storytelling tool, especially in Shonen, that the next bad guy is typically stronger than the one before. However, it is important for one to not go overboard with this. when you’re careful, you go from a villain like Orochimaru to the Akatsuki. When not careful you end up with Madara, Obito and Kabuto. These three villains are so absurdly powerful that there is no convincing way to beat them without making them pants-on-head retarded. Then there’s the Jubi, whose menace is non-existant at this point since it continues to fail and have no real impact on anything. All tension dies the moment you remember Madara could drop a meteor on the battlefield and kill everyone there or that Tobi could just trap Naruto and Bee in his pocket dimension like he did with Fuu and Torune.

2. The Villains are bad.

Why is Madara evil? Because Tobirama rightfully said they should keep an eye on the Uchiha and because he wasn’t made Hokage. Hashirama is one o the worst characters I’ve ever ha the displeasure of knowing about. He was willing to sacrifice his life for an evil, selfish bastard in Madara that he had already defeated. He got upset at Tobirama for making the people vote for their leader instead of going along with him appointing Madara as leader. His entire character was devoted to appeasing Madara’s ego, and all this did was make Madara come off as a stupid, self-entitled brat with an incomprehensibly large mancrush on Hashirama.

What is Kabuto’s goal? He wants to follow in Naruto’s footsteps and overcome Orochimaeu like  Naruto overcame the Kyubi like he said all those hundreds of chapters ago? Wrong! Okay, he wants to learn as many jutsus ad he can like Orochimaru did? No! Okay, i give up. Tell me what he wants. He wants to be Sasuke’s older brother. What. No, really, what? That is Kabuto’s nonsensical goal that in no way meshes well with him helping Tobi.

Tobi… oh Tobi. I don’t even know where to begin with this guy. When his mask came off two characters got kicked in the nuts by Kishimoto: Obito and The Masked Man (TMM). TMM was the nihilistic guy who spent most of his time onscreen getting to the point and avoiding lengthy talking. Obito was the one unambiguously good Uchiha that gave his beliefs to Kakashi, who in turn gave it to Naruto. After the mask came off, Tobi became incessantly whiny, the things he says no longer makes any sense and he contradicts himself every time he opens his mouth. “Don’t think this is about you and Rin, Kakashi.” then he says “You let Rin die, you’re trash.” and he continually thinks of her while onscreen.

3. The Uchiha

Remember how we were supposed to think the Uchiha massacre was a bad thing? In fact, we’re still supposed to think that. But why should we? This Arc revealed that every Ichiha is born with evil brain chakra… LOL. This is no joke, you read that right, evil brain chakra. What this means is every Uchiha, more than anyone else in the world, is predisposed to evil. This, in essence, means Tobirama would’ve been downright NEGLIGENT to not watch them, and a leader would be downright inept if the Uchiha were not massacred before they threw the world into chaos. No, Kishimoto, evil brain chakra does not Bsolve the Uchiha of their crimes, it just means they should’ve been dealt with faster.

4. Character Derailment

I’m gonna keep this section short, sweet and to the point.

A) Sasuke: suddenly becoming sane and joining the good guys, conpletely negating hundreds and hundreds of chapters of buildup. I swear you cannot handle someone switching sides worse than Sasuke the two times he did it.

b) Itachi: he moved from a tragic character to becoming Christ. Suddenly his parents were happy to be killed by him, lessening the paun associated with their deaths. He’s somehow good enough to be giving Naruto and Killerbee instructions in the fight with Nagato as if they were Genin. He tells Labuto he is lying to himself… but who or what makes Itachi good enough to tell Kabuto he is lying to himself. Kabuto busted his ass to get to where he was and WAS trying to find his true self through his biological knowledge, but Itachi goes “lolnope, I somehow know you better than yoh know yourself.” He’s a self-righteous asshole, but Kishi portrays his self-righteousness as noble. Disgusting.

C) Sakura: think about recent developments. Now think about what’s happened over the past 400 chapters. Let it sink in. Sakura has been storing up chakra all this time and refused to use that stored up chakra against Sasori even though he was gonna kill her and Chiyo. She didn’t use it when Naruto went 4tails against Orochimaru to help him. She didn’t use it against Hidan and Kakuzu. She didn’t use it during Pain’s invasion. She didn’t use it to beat Sasuke, even going so far as to say she’s useless and that she’ll just leave things in Naruto’s hands. She didn’t use it to heal Neji before he died. What this tells us is that she’s either a heartless monster or Kishimoto NEVER planned this and just did it to have shitty Sanin symbolism.

There are others, but if I went through them all we’d be here all night.

5) Broken Aesops.

Old generation being surprised by the new. Lol, right. Given what we saw in the Madara vs Hashirama battle, no ninja has surpassed those two. Madara easily beats all 5 Kages. When things looked their worst against the Jubi, the previous 4 generations of Kages come to save the day. The old generation kicks ass and the current one IS ass.

Unity is Stronger than all the Biju and kekkei genkai in the world. Bullshi-. Naruto and Bee are wasting time and chakra protecting the 50000 or so Ninja there. The “alliance” has literally contributed nothing to this that Naruto and Bee couldn’t by just throwing Bijudama after Bijudama at the Jubi. In fact, they’d likely have done more damage since Kurama wouldn’t have the need to be giving out his chakra like that.

Be your own person. Itachi vs Kabuto was basically one big PSA about being yourself because you’re the only you. The message exists in Naruto and Sasuke too. Before Kishi tried making Sakura ‘useful’, Naruto hadn’t used Jiraiya’s techniques and teachings for a hell of a long time because right now he’s forging his own legend. Sasuke abandoned Orochimaru and the Snake motif when he changed his team’s name to Hawk, and stopped using Snakes, instead summoning a hawk against Danzo. In a ploy to make Sakura seem like she has grown, he reverts Naruto and Sasuke’s character development to maintain Sanin Symlolism.

A happy world of lies is worse than a terrible world of truths.

Tobi: “Rin didn’t deserve to die. If this wold allows someone as good as her to die, it simply cannot be real.”

Kakashi: “I’ll kill the present you to maintain the past you.”

See the similarity?

My main problems with this arc fall into being very subjective, so I will end it here. I do hope yoi enjoyed this read, because I sure as hell enjoyed writing it more than I’ve enjoyed Naruto in the past 2 years. This post doesn’t come from a place of hate; I hate Twilight but you don’t see me devoting entire posts to it. No, thismpost is born from feelings of betrayal coming from someone that once loved this series. I hope this manga is coming to an end, but I also hope Kishimoto actually pits effort into this, or far more than he has been. This series, despite its many many many flaws deserves a strong ending. G’night Shannaro!

Naruto vs Rock Lee

Since the chapter won’t be out for a few more hours, enjoy this.

Top Fails of the War Arc

Post Author: Kisuzachi

At the start of the War, I was expecting the best arc in the entire manga. Just 5 chapters in and I realized it would never live up to the hype, but crumble under the weight of the countless missteps, bad plotting, and overabundance of characters.

1. The newer generation always surpasses the old.

The problem with a war arc in anything, is the lack of a focus, but that’s justified since wars are generally chaotic things. However, when you employ a certain theme in your story, your War arc, where everyone shows up on the stage, should exemplify that. Think of One Piece’s War; it was chaotic, all while Luffy was trying to get to his brother. One of One Piece’s most prevalent themes is bonds, and that War exemplified it. Naruto has the newer generation surpassing the old… except Madara who can just show up after being dead for decades and being 3 generations behind and mop the floor with the Kages, or the Rookie 9 being completely overshadowed by every single adult.

2. What ever happened to those guys?

Remember that thing about people being out-of-focus? Yeah, the characters you introduced since the beginning of the story, and have kept around all this time get little to no focus this arc. This ties in to the theme of “the newer generation surpassing the old”. You’d think this arc would’ve focused heavily on the Konoha 11/12/whatever the number is now doing stuff and growing into their own as Shinobi. Nope, you’d be wrong. This Arc instead focused on random ninjas we’ve never seen before and having dead ninjas seem “OMGUSOAWESUM!11!!” The characters the writer does give focus to (Shikamaru’s team) have already been developed, and if he knew he wouldn’t have the time to develop the others, then he should’ve used a team we’ve barely seen in the manga: Team 8 or Team Guy. For example, what is Tenten’s motivation? Kishimoto, develop the characters we’ve been invested in for hundreds of chapters, not the random characters you introduced 5 chapters ago.

Beware the army of naked men!

3. Only Naruto can save us now!

Yes, we get Naruto is the main character, but this situation is so niche it’s silly. Kishimoto created a situation where only Naruto can be of value. Yeah, that’s not how wars work. Everyone works together to achieve common goals, not wait for some superhero to come and save the day. What would the alliance have done if the Fox cloak didn’t give Naruto the power to sense evil intentions (that also raises the question of everyone being good)? We understand Naruto needed to get in on the action, but come up with a more believable scenario.

Then there was his scuffle with the Raikage. Um, were we supposed to be siding with Naruto in that? He just came off as a cocky, arrogant and selfish child. The Raikage’s argument even bested Naruto’s. The best Kishimoto could come up with was giving Ay a flashback and making Naruto say he’s the savior. I mean, WHAT!?

Should've been "Naruto saves the day"

4. Learn2War

Remember that bit about war being chaotic? Yeah, Kishi doesn’t seem to understand this. We keep seeing a group of shinobi and enemies standing still while two named characters fight. At least it seems that way. You’d expect kunai and shuriken to be flying all over, but all you ever see is random fodder ninja being blown away by a named enemy. Then there’s the infamous “half of each side’s forces died in one afternoon”. Yeah, no war has a death toll that high in just one bloody afternoon. And what were the odds that both sides would lose exactly 50% of their armies? Come on Kishi.

5. Edo Tensei.

This is undoubtedly the biggest fail of the War Arc. I mean, why revive characters that were neatly wrapped up, only to have them come back and be defeated again, showing us all what we already knew? Some characters were ever better left dead, so as their characters wouldn’t have gotten pussified. Zabuza was the badass ninja we all thought was epic cool when we first saw him, but when he returned he turned into a bleeding heart. What was the point of Asuma returning? So Choji could turn into a butterfly? Yeah, any enemy could’ve made that happen. Why bring back Nagato just so he can be sealed again and not contribute to the plot in any way? The point is, why bring back characters if they aren’t going to be doing anything worthwhile? Edo Tensei should’ve only revived characters we’ve never seen before, not characters we’re familiar with.
Well, that’s all folks.

Let’s hope this arc can get better, because right now with the Uchihaha bros fighting Kabuto, it still sucks.