[Anime-only] Naruto Shippuden Episode 214 Discussion

[wingdarkness]

Wow, that fan-film a few pages back kinda changes my opinion on this episode which I thought was about 70% GOOD until it shot us with the Vegeta level "FINAL FLASH!!"...

That crap aside I'm just gonna give up on Kakashi ever doing anything supercool ever again...He's disappointed me so many times now...Other than his fight with Kakazu and Hidan a while back he just hasn't lived up to his reputation ...And I don't wanna hear any excuses, I've heard them all...Either they nerfed the hell outta him since part 1 or he has never been this legendary ninja he's always been glamorized to be... He's a myth...

I'm tired of the nonchalant in-fight figuring $hit out from him (Something I normally love)...I want him to pull out some of the 8million copy ninja techniques and DO SOMETHING! Like in that fanfilm....He doesn't have to pwn, but a half-dead Sasuke basically toying with Kakashi is just sad...Hokage? He doesn't even have a hax...His Sharingan is only good for barely escaping death, and he appears completely outclassed so much now...But like I said, maybe I've just put too much into the myth of the Copy ninja...

Shifting gears to Sakura, yeah why right? All the buildup to what she was gonna do and how she was gonna do it and she does what every Sakura hater KNEW she would do exactly how you thought she'd do it...The tribunal of the Fair Treatment of Women in Shonen should f**kin sue this show for the pathetic showing of this girl...Episode 26 of Naruto $hittypudden (Yeah that series) is the only episode where Sakura has done anything of note in this entire series IMO and it's a travesty...I'm just tired of her $hit...She has like no qualities...Jesus Hinata is the multi-layered character Sakura could only dream to be...

Anyways, I somehow still liked most of it until they butthurt the ending right before Naruto came onto the scene...So here we are again...Except Sasuke needs Kakashi to summon Pakkun as a seeing-eye dawg...More turn from the darkside chit-chat no doubt, and the episode preview animation suggest no one would even want to draw a high tempo battle with the "C" team, so this will be more pontificating...Maybe someone can tell Sasuke Konoha looks like Darfur right now, so why even bother...

Uh, GOOD EPISODE?^^

[Discerptor]

Originally Posted by Casshern

Yes, and they didn't just kill the rebels. They wiped out the entire clan. That's why Sasuke wants to kill all of Konoha.

Sasuke is exactly what Itachi made him to be. He filled Sasuke with hatred, made Sasuke an avenger and just before Itachi died he told Sasuke about Madara's involvement in the massacre, ensuring that Sasuke would also persue Madara. Knowing that Madara would reveal the truth about the massacre and further drive Sasuke mad with hatred, he implanted a fail-safe in Naruto. Everything went according to Itachi's plan.

No, Sasuke wants to kill all of Konoha because he's bitter that anyone else can be allowed to enjoy life while he's wallowing in his self pity ("They're all laughing!"). Show me once where he's stated even a tiny bit of this (incredibly flawed) quid-pro-quo logic you think he's applying. He has every right to be emotionally affected by everything that's happened, but his childish approach that Itachi clearly demonstrated was the wrong way to go about things is no one's fault but Sasuke's.

And Itachi wanted Sasuke to be the hero that defeated the Uchiha traitor and came back to Konoha. He put a lot of failsafes in place because as he told Naruto, he knew Sasuke could be easily manipulated. But he certainly didn't want the end result to be Sasuke becoming the new bad guy. You don't take an umbrella with you when there's a 50% chance of precipitation because you want it to rain.

[Fran~]

Itachi must be doing a facepalm and saying "Sasuke, you're doing it wrong"

[wingdarkness]

Itachi set up all those failsafes to be sure, but perhaps making him rely that much on hatred IS a relevant factor in Sasuke's wrath (I don't like how Kakashi is trying to convey it as just Madara's manipulation of him alone)...I doubt honestly that that douchebag would have went back to Konoha as a champion and turned his life around even after defeating Itachi...That's why the good guys always try to tell avengers that nothing good comes at the end of revenge...Sasuke's personality throughout the show seems to suggest he would have focused his rage, loss, hatred, et al, in another direction...

Eventually he would have searched for answers, knowledge, even if it was just him peacefully trying to restore his clan...And enuff of the truth, if not enuff breadcrumbs, would have come out...I don't think there's any defending Sasuke at this point as he has the emotional immaturity of a young Keith Olbermann^^, but his nexus-level indoctrination to hatred (via Itachi) is something on display right now (however misplaced?)...

[Discerptor]

I do agree that the manner by which Itachi had Sasuke get to that point carried a heavy risk, namely what's happening now. Itachi seemed to have some degree of faith that all the measures he took would make it turn out alright, so we'll just have to see about that. The Amaterasu failed to kill Madara before he could tell Sasuke his version of events, so now it's a matter of whether giving the throat crow to Naruto was the correct decision.

[Fran~]

I believe that Itachi's first plan was:
I'll say to Sasuke that i killed the clan for the lulz so he would kill me and he will be acknowledged by Konoha as an hero and everybody's happy.

After that, everything went wrong and here we are...

[yogotah]

Itachi was very naive himself in thinking filling sasuke up with rage and anger would make him become a hero of the leaf. Those emotion did make sasuke very strong, like itachi predicted, but there's no way that Sasuke was EVER going back to the leaf after leaving. I vaguely remember itachi giving naruto a gift, I'm not sure what it is, but we'll see how it relates to Sasuke's anger-future.

[Discerptor]

I think the throat crow Itachi gave Naruto was the ninja equivalent of Mentos. Minty fresh breath will enhance Naruto's Talk-no-jutsu to the point that it can penetrate Sasuke's Mood-kill-no-jutsu.

[Fran~]

It worked with Pain!... we have yet to see if it works with Sasuke. Perhaps it can be useful with Sakura

[HayashiTakara]

Originally Posted by yogotah

Itachi was very naive himself in thinking filling sasuke up with rage and anger would make him become a hero of the leaf. Those emotion did make sasuke very strong, like itachi predicted, but there's no way that Sasuke was EVER going back to the leaf after leaving. I vaguely remember itachi giving naruto a gift, I'm not sure what it is, but we'll see how it relates to Sasuke's anger-future.

He didn't think that it'll make Sasuke into a hero... He wanted Sasuke to kill him as Itachi believed it was a befitting punishment for his "crime". The hate will allow Sasuke to do it without remorse and hesitation. He just didn't count on Madara spilling the beans on everything ruining his plan.

[Fran~]

But Itachi knew that Sasuke would need something really valuable to change Uchiha's image in front of the Elders, Danzou and Sarutobi. It's like Danzou said about Naruto after the fight against Pain, he was untouchable because Konoha's admiration.

The plan wouldn't work if Sasuke only killed him to repeat the case of the coup that Uchiha's were planning. Remember that Itachi asked Sarutobi to watch Sasuke. Kakashi always was focusing with Sasuke's training, remember how he left Naruto with Ebisu to train Sasuke and keep an eye over him?.

[Kakashi]

Originally Posted by wingdarkness

Wow, that fan-film a few pages back kinda changes my opinion on this episode which I thought was about 70% GOOD until it shot us with the Vegeta level "FINAL FLASH!!"...

That crap aside I'm just gonna give up on Kakashi ever doing anything supercool ever again...He's disappointed me so many times now...Other than his fight with Kakazu and Hidan a while back he just hasn't lived up to his reputation ...And I don't wanna hear any excuses, I've heard them all...Either they nerfed the hell outta him since part 1 or he has never been this legendary ninja he's always been glamorized to be... He's a myth...

I'm tired of the nonchalant in-fight figuring $hit out from him (Something I normally love)...I want him to pull out some of the 8million copy ninja techniques and DO SOMETHING! Like in that fanfilm....He doesn't have to pwn, but a half-dead Sasuke basically toying with Kakashi is just sad...Hokage? He doesn't even have a hax...His Sharingan is only good for barely escaping death, and he appears completely outclassed so much now...But like I said, maybe I've just put too much into the myth of the Copy ninja...

For me, the fanfilm reminded me how many potential techniques Kakashi has to call upon. Making it all the more suprising he's barely used any of them in all this time. I'm not sure why, but the mangaka may think these kinds of techniques have become inadequate just because there are more powerful techniques out there, and because of this, the fights all seem a lot shorter and less beefed out because he sticks to only the most powerful techniques the particular characters have.

It's lame this way, because there's nothing intelligent about playing trump cards with blood-line limits.

Kakashi has been eclipsed because he hasn't got the same extreme power. This wouldn't be hard to remedy if I was the writer (there's this thing called a power up which is apparently only rationed for the likes of Naruto and Sasuke these days), if I wanted to keep Kakashi relevant in the most important fights, but it seems he's being left behind. I think it's partly because he hasn't received this power up that he hasn't lived up to his rep, since his battle instincts are clearly up there with the likes of Itachi (the best), he simply hasn't got the power/stamina to use it or for it to mean anything. But maybe the bigger problem is that other characters are so ridiculously overpowered that it's stupid.

[wingdarkness]

Originally Posted by Kakashi

For me, the fanfilm reminded me how many potential techniques Kakashi has to call upon. Making it all the more suprising he's barely used any of them in all this time. I'm not sure why, but the mangaka may think these kinds of techniques have become inadequate just because there are more powerful techniques out there, and because of this, the fights all seem a lot shorter and less beefed out because he sticks to only the most powerful techniques the particular characters have.

It's lame this way, because there's nothing intelligent about playing trump cards with blood-line limits.

Kakashi has been eclipsed because he hasn't got the same extreme power. This wouldn't be hard to remedy if I was the writer (there's this thing called a power up which is apparently only rationed for the likes of Naruto and Sasuke these days), if I wanted to keep Kakashi relevant in the most important fights, but it seems he's being left behind. I think it's partly because he hasn't received this power up that he hasn't lived up to his rep, since his battle instincts are clearly up there with the likes of Itachi (the best), he simply hasn't got the power/stamina to use it or for it to mean anything. But maybe the bigger problem is that other characters are so ridiculously overpowered that it's stupid.

This is shonen-fight...The "Power" is in the stroke of a pen...There's everything from time skips to offscreen whateverness to give Kakashi something to up his profile...What made his performance even worse was the callback to Sarutobi vs. Orochimaru...They seemed to be conveying a clear setup to something epic, but alas it fell flat without even a basic taijutsu exchange...Sometimes you just gotta obey Rule of Cool and Kakashi doesn't get that treatment anymore...He's kinda a shell of his former self...

What I wouldn't give to see some cool dog summoning techniques that he never had to do because it's like almost close to forbidden or something...Anything really that's not just him running around struggling at full strength...It's become more than a trend at this point...Every great ninja in this show supposedly has one killer technique, where's Kakashi's? Oh wait, it's uber-weak Monkeygold Sharingan...

[AuroraFlash]

Originally Posted by Kakashi

For me, the fanfilm reminded me how many potential techniques Kakashi has to call upon. Making it all the more suprising he's barely used any of them in all this time. I'm not sure why, but the mangaka may think these kinds of techniques have become inadequate just because there are more powerful techniques out there, and because of this, the fights all seem a lot shorter and less beefed out because he sticks to only the most powerful techniques the particular characters have.

It's lame this way, because there's nothing intelligent about playing trump cards with blood-line limits.

Kakashi has been eclipsed because he hasn't got the same extreme power. This wouldn't be hard to remedy if I was the writer (there's this thing called a power up which is apparently only rationed for the likes of Naruto and Sasuke these days), if I wanted to keep Kakashi relevant in the most important fights, but it seems he's being left behind. I think it's partly because he hasn't received this power up that he hasn't lived up to his rep, since his battle instincts are clearly up there with the likes of Itachi (the best), he simply hasn't got the power/stamina to use it or for it to mean anything. But maybe the bigger problem is that other characters are so ridiculously overpowered that it's stupid.

I don't know a shit about the fanfilm, but I know you're right. Usually,… in American film it's not only a tradition but almost a sacred rule that you don't just keep introducing people and facts, no way, you also keep coming back at it and using it to the fullest.

For example, if you introduced a character who knows over 1000 techniques it would definitely mean that you show at least 1001 techniques and that you make him use a different technique each time he fights… a different technique, a different kick or punch or something like that.

You hint that one is the grandchild of the 3rd Hokage and you make him inherit his skills and surpass his grandfather of course instead of making him a lame copy of the protagonist.

I am missing this a lot. One can't just keep introducing more and more characters and let the old ones go to waste. There was so much potential that remained unused even in part 1 and instead of making something out of it using the filler episodes, the fillers were torturous and bungling!

[neshru]

Preview screenshot for tomorrow's episode from the Naruto blog

Spoiler:

http://www.naruto.com/nablog/upimg/1062_1.JPG

[qwertyuiopz]

the sharingan colour is inverted