[Anime-only] Shippuden Episode 164 Discussion

[james0246]

Welcome to this week's episode discussion thread posted before it airs in Japan (which is Thursday at 07:29 PM).

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This Week's episode:
Danger! Sage Mode Limit Reached - 危機! 消えた仙人モード ~ Pinchi! Kieta Sennin Mōdo.

Description:

Naruto successfully begins taking out Pain's bodies one after another, but when his Sage Mode reaches its limit, Pain attempts to take control of the battle. Naruto throws another Rasenshuriken but it's absorbed by a revived Preta Path. He manages to kill the Naraka Path, just to get repelled by Deva Path who has just recovered his power. As Deva performs another Shinra Tensei to the toads, Naruto realizes he can't use taijutsu or ninjutsu on the remaining paths, so he will have to fight them using a genjutsu suggested by Fukasaku.

Credits –
Animation Supervisor: Hong Rong, Zenjirou Ukulele & Yumenosuke Tokuda (A)
Storyboard: Tsutomu Naniwa
Episode Director: Hideyuki Yoshida
Screenplay: Shin Yoshida

Title for Next Episode:
Nine-Tails Capture Complete - 九尾捕獲完了 ~ Kyūbi hokaku kanryō.

[neshru]

Originally Posted by james0246

Credits –
Animation Supervisor: Hong Rong, Zenjirou Ukulele & Yumenosuke Tokuda (A)
Storyboard: Tsutomu Naniwa
Episode Director: Hideyuki Yoshida
Screenplay: Shin Yoshida

You know, you could add the last few episodes done by these people. I doubt these names alone mean anything to most of the people here

[EoT]

Didn't think much of this episode.. pretty boring :|

Only two Pain remain now.

[Langus]

I actually really liked it - action from start to finish. It's also very impressive to see how they've animated the rasengan. It's so much more bad ass in the anime than it is in the manga.

[neshru]

I had to facepalm at the whole explanation of the combo attack. Like what happened wasn't obvious enough. It's like they wanted to point out how smart the whole chain of attacks was -_-

[Spectacular_Insanity]

Originally Posted by EoT

Didn't think much of this episode.. pretty boring :|

Only two Pain remain now.

Seriously? One of the first episodes in a long time to NOT having talking through half of it and you're BORED?

I liked this episode a lot. Finally Naruto proves that he's not totally useless.

[iBeast]

Epic fight.

[Blaster]

That's a huge powerup Naruto got. He can handle himself pretty well without Sage mode too. I hope he won't slow down after this fight against Pain. Like how Ichigo slowed down severely after his fight with Byakuya.

[Marvx360x]

It was an average episode imo. I don't really know why but the episodes before this one felt better somehow.

[kitten320]

Not a bad episode, had some nice fighting scenes though whole xplanation thingy surely wasm't needed. Those two Pain's got smashed by Naruto's old tricks too... I think Akatsuki seriously need to do better investigations...

Also I'm lost as to why the clone has to be brough there, can't he cancel jutsu why he is here?

[Jehuty]

This week's animation was pretty much crap at crucial parts of the fight.

All in all, it was an OK episode at best, and terribad at worst.

I can't even bring myself to vote =\

[Jehuty]

Originally Posted by kitten320

Also I'm lost as to why the clone has to be brough there, can't he cancel jutsu why he is here?

We were never given an explanation for that even in the manga, but I think the clones were there for 2 reasons:

1) it's best to keep the clones out of harm's way so the technique won't be inadvertently released.

2) the oil probably helps them concentrate and amass the nature chakra for extended periods of time.

[Kafriel]

Was inclined to rate it between 0 and 10, because I happen to like Duel Masters, but since it's rare to see Naruto show off teh brains, I'll give it a 74. The animation could have been better, but at least there were no terribly short cuts to other scenes.

[Emilis]

Originally Posted by Jehuty

We were never given an explanation for that even in the manga, but I think the clones were there for 2 reasons:

1) it's best to keep the clones out of harm's way so the technique won't be inadvertently released.

2) the oil probably helps them concentrate and amass the nature chakra for extended periods of time.

It makes sense he would keep the clones far away from the battle, or even at that specific fountain, but his question is why does he have to summon them to konoha before releasing one? That's something I have wondered myself. It seems odd to me that he could maintain a clone that is a months travel away, but he's not able to stop the technique unless it's harmed, or near by.

[Blaine]

Maybe its quicker for the sage chakra to transfer to naruto if the bunshin is released in close proximity to him.

[Bombo]

AHHA.!! Hinata part next episode>? I can't wait for it

[AuroraFlash]

The clones transfer chakra back to the user? Then I guess kage bunshin does not use up your chakra because you can simply create several clones and then let them transfer chakra back to you. It's like changing batteries... o'rly?

[Kafriel]

^ Yarly, they spent their time chakra farming while Naruto was busy on his Konoha raid, and then they gave it aaaall back to Naruto, so he's got reserves now

[CuXe]

chakra farming FTW!

[monir]

Very good episode. These are the ones that made Naruto so popular to begin with. Every action was explained and as a result it was easy to appreciate the brilliance of Naruto's move. How awesome is Kage Bunshin? No matter how brash Naruto has been over the course of this show, his planning to utilize Kage Bunshin to its maximum effect has always been innovative and solid.

Looks like Hinata steps in the next episode as shown in the episode preview. Oh man, I sure hope she doesn't become another statistic in Pain's hand. Some one find her bike, so she can take that ride singing, "jitensha, jitensha, jitensha" and high tail out. I kind of liked the ED song today. The visual in the ED is brilliant, it's just the song that takes some getting used to.

The overall animation is still average, but for someone like me who is watching the story for the first time, it's not a problem at all because these acts thus far did not require any good animated effort. As long as the direction of the story is solid, which it has been thus far as far as I'm concerned, high budgeted animation isn't a requirement right now. These episodes can build on the climax. And judging from the animation director that are working on the upcoming episodes, it seems the high budgeted animation effort will be needed, probably to play out the climax. I've already marked my calendar for episode 167 which probably is going to be the best episode animation-wise from this arc.

Anyway, enjoyed it a lot. Episode gets an 8 from me for the story alone.