Naruto Chapter 437: Confession

Summary: Survivors move to find Nagato while Team Gai heads towards Konoha. Hinata confesses her love to Naruto and is hit by Pain while she attempts to protect him. Naruto unleashes six tails. (Read 437 here)

WARNING: ? and ! abuse

Serenphoria says: What the frack!?!

Holy cow ridiculousness and emotional roller coaster ride. My internal dialogue went something like this:

Hinata's been watching the whole time? Can she lip read?

What? You guys still haven't started looking for Nagato yet?

Gah! Shikamaru, you're killing me. Your injury is so lame! Why are you being so complacent at a time like this! Ask the slugs and medics around to fix you! They're right. There.

Team Gaaaaaaaaaaiiiii!!!

*Guffaw* It took Neji's uber-eyes to spot that ginormous frog?


Erm...the wounds aren't deep? So...you've demobilized Naruto with inch-wide acupunture needles? With no blood?


Why do I imagine Ma!Frog with a raspy Jewish!Mother voice? (no offense to Jewish mothers...I've just been watching The Big Bang Theory lately)

Holy Cr@p, Hinata! Squee!

LOL. Hinata is 3 miles away before you realize she's gone? Huuga bodyguard FAIL!

Holy shnapps, Hinata has never looked better. And, dude, that's a really good angle of her back too...


Oh, here comes the confession...blah, blah, predictable..."I just want to walk with you..." That is the sweetest line in Naruto-history. Awww.

Go Hinata! Kick some...what, seriously? She doesn't even get one hit in? GARGH!! *Fan smash*


*double take* She got Shinra Tensei'd? Uh oh. Hinata, I'm sorry I laughed because you went eek!

What the heck is this a picture of?


Really, Naruto, really? Her unverified death set you off? That's all it took. Pretty girl you never thought much about confesses and that sets you off? What, Hinata's just a convenient device then? Grrr...

Whoa. BLEACH much? When has pure chakra ever become solid? Is this allowed? Did Kishi break his own rules?


I'm exhausted after reading that. It won't surprise me either way if Hinata is dead or alive - though she's actually more useful dead, sadly, (and this was the only chapter I've ever liked her in too) - that way, Naruto doesn't need to deal (in a relationshippy way) with the fact that someone has confessed their love to him and can move on with the plot.

Naruto Chapter 436: Peace

Summary: Inoichi theorizes that the person controlling the Pains is located in the highest point near Konoha. Pain explains he is seeking justice and cyclical periods of peace via fear and though Naruto disagrees with Pain’s methods, he is unable to provide an alternative course. Nagato is revealed. (Read 436 here)

Serenphoria Says:

Though the inevitable monologue came, this chapter meaty and satisfying nonetheless. I had a lot of thoughts on this one, so sorry for the delay:

[More Chakra Properties]

So chakra can be projected through space as long as the path is relatively clear, like satellite signals. I never thought about the limitations of real!Pain even though the Nara’s shadow is a physical manifestation of this property. Interesting…in my head I just imagined real!Pain was in a tree just outside the walls or something (maybe I was still thinking of Tobi)

I predict Ino and her dad are the ones scouting via bird possession.

[Justice]

Although the chapter is called Peace, it was just as much about Justice, a concept that we haven’t heard much, if at all, in Naruto. I think if anything, we’ve known Justice as an end (Sasuke seeking vengeance as a form of “justice”?). In fact, Naruto’s motivation for “Justice” is eerily similar to what is motivating Sasuke: a deep, emotionally-charged sense of loss and the desire to make the culprit pay. Nagato represents a more classical sense of justice: one that stands on principle, detached from personal emotion. Still, I had trouble following his reasoning: is instilling fear in military states ‘just’ and ‘righteous’ because it brings peace or is it ‘just’ because the military states must pay for the nature of its existence?

Perhaps a larger question is, do military states exist because humans cannot help but hate and fight, or does the very presence of a military state generate war? And, if it’s the case that humans are warrish by nature, is a military state the best way to deal with it?

From Nagato’s point of view, he accepts that humans will fight, but he seems to also assume that a military state is inevitable. For all his grand ambition, he does not seek to undo the institution of a military state, only to regulate the people within its confines.

[Confrontation]

It was thrilling to see these two larger than life characters come together. This confrontation alone was more thrilling than the whole fight prior, particularly because we see just how far Naruto has come and how far he still has to go.

Where Naruto’s vision for Justice reached only as far as Kohona, Nagato’s reached all inhabited land and we see that Naruto’s world is still only as big as his village. (Yes, yes, he’s got connections in Sand, blah, blah…but you still get the sense that his world is still about his friends, and what he’s identified as “home”). That’s why it was so sweet to see a moment when his world suddenly got a lot bigger. Naruto came into the fight with such conviction and clear delineation between the good guys and the bad guys, but we end the chapter with everything fading into gray. The bad guy has known the same pain and their goal is ultimately the same. The ninja way of life is no longer glorified and infallible, but marred by fundamental flaws and subsequent consequences. Naruto was not defeated even with his hands pieced through, but he was when he no longer knew why he was fighting.

I loved, loved, loved that we’re seeing him mature as someone who is capable of listening to the other side and acknowledging that he doesn’t have the answers. I’m also reveling in the fact that he’s in a serious moral quandary (evil me). I’m able to enjoy his pain so much because I know that there’s a stubborn child-like part of him that will hang on to his idealism and he’ll come to the conclusion that he may not have the answer, but Nagato’s got it wrong and he’ll bring peace in his own way!

[What Next?]

I feel that we’re more-or-less done with the Pains: the next step is dealing with Nagato so that the last Pain standing is disabled, or at least escapable. I don’t actually see Naruto being taken away. He—along with the rest of us—needs time to take in the damage and grieve. Pacing-wise, we’re not ready for another rescue.

That said, I don’t think Kakashi will be a puppet in the immediate future. I’m not even going to speculate and just wait it out.

Oh Nagato! I immediately thought of that one mutant in X-Men II who immaciated and prematurely old because it took so much out of him control others with his mind. For the power the Pains had, I think it’s fitting that Nagato is so gross. I would have been miffed if he was handsome and healthy AND powerful. Something’s got to give.

That's Justice.

Naruto Chapter 435: Banshou Tenin

Summary: Naruto defeats absorb!Pain, but is still caught. Inoichi thinks he knows how to locate the original Pain.

Serenphoria Says:

[Splash Page]

The phrase 'stole Kakashi' really jumped out at me. Kishimoto is still extremely ambiguous about Kakashi and never once did any of his characters outright state that he was dead. Even the Narrator doesn't. This is one more indication that Kakashi is not technically out of the story. Perhaps 'stole' refers to a comotose/useless state, or perhaps even that Kakashi will be a puppet. Whatever it is, Kishimoto has teased us too much about Kakashi to not develop his character further -- what author could possibly give up a character with so much potential to enrich his story?

[Pains and Naruto]

Whoa, let me get this straight.

There was soooo much sage energy in Naruto that absorby!Pain couldn't handle it and turned into a statue. And absorby!Pain didn't know to stop when he started to feel all funny? If there's a delay in energy consumption and the effects (sounds like alcohol poisoning), how would Naruto, Jiraiya, and other sages know when to stop?

And OMG Pa!Frog!

*cries*

And it looks like Pain is about to monologue. I wonder if we're going to learn anything new.



[Back in Konoha...]

Yay! They're thinking about puppeteer!Pain after all.

And interesting that Inoichi qualifies chakra has having a frequency. I wonder if people with the same chakra frequency will enhance each other's abilities like resonance =) Out of curiousity, does anyone know what other characteristics of chakra are canon? We know that the person using their own can feel it and the Hyuuga can see it as color. And I think others can feel large amounts of chakra as pressure (as in, when Naruto and Itachi, etc., get crazy, others are all what is this chakra? but maybe they were registering an abnormal frequency?) It's interesting to think that perhaps people of different abilities may register and experience chakra in different ways.

Anyway....looking forward to learning something new in the next few chapters.

Naruto Chapter 434: Naruto vs God Realm

Summary: Naruto gets caught.

Serenphoria Says:

I actually don't have too much to say about the battle that made up most of the chapter. Except that I love this face. Who wouldn't cheer for him with that confidence?

What was noteworthy for me was the quick scene featuring the others. Naruto's peers showed some surprise and a little concern, but made little effort to help. Kiba's reaction was particularly uncharacteristic: I would have expected him, out of all people, to try to charge into the fray. Not only did he complacently accept li'l slug's statement that they shouldn't interfere, he basically told others not to either. At the very least he should have taken the order with more reluctance.

I realize that giving Kiba that reaction may have been an ill-casted attempt to set up Hinata's reaction as the only one to resist and go help Naruto. She showed a little spine, then instantly turned into a jellyfish within a page. Let her have a little character development, please! Generic!Huuga says you'll be a burden and you just take it? Gah!

And who was it that decided Naruto had to do this for himself anyhow? See, now he's in trouble.