[Manga] Naruto Chapter 537 Discussion

[Hunter]

Welcome to the weekly manga chapter discussion thread. This thread is created early to discuss spoilers and speculation about the upcoming chapter as well as discussion of said chapter once it has been released.

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Spoilers released.

Originally Posted by DeDe

Confirmed spoilers for this week.

Gedo Mazo is like Godzilla. It wipes out most of the battlefield.
Kitsuchi uses a huge earth jutsu, but Gedo Mazo stomps it.
Lots of ninja are getting killed by Gedo Mazo.
Naruto goes into Rikudou mode and is rushing toward the battle. Kirabi warns him about wasting chakra.
Chozu and Choji go fight Gedo. They get blasted in seconds and return to normal.
Madara goes for the jar and goes through the ninja guarding it like a hot knife through butter.
Shikamaru though figured out that Madara was trying to use Kinkaku and Ginkaku's chakra with Gedo Mazo and attacks him with a form of shadow neck bind. Madara can't phase. Darui also arrives.
Madara regrets having to kill Shika, because of his talent/intellect, but then has Gedo destroy the shadow and gets ready to stomp Shika and Darui. Kitsuchi and Choji save them before Gedo Mazo steps on them.
Madara vanishes with the jar and says nothing will stop him from winning this war.
The beach battle is over. Kitsuchi, Darui, and Shika decide what to do next.
Kabuto seems confused by what Madara is doing and thinks he is rushing. This wasn't part of their plan.
Night comes and all the battles stop as everyone takes cover. Kakashi, Mifune, Hinata, etc. Gaara's division is still hiding to avoid the Kages. The next morning will start the next phase of the war.

Alliance loses are 40,000. So half of their 80,000 is dead. Akatsuki lost 50,000. So half of their Zetsu are dead.

A more condense version.

Gedo Mazo curb-stomps everyone.
Choza and Choji get blasted.
Shikamaru stops Madara, but Gedo Mazo breaks the binding.
Madara takes the jar away and leaves. He wants Kinkaku and Ginkaku's chakra
The first day is over. All the battles stop.
40,000 dead for the Alliance. 50,000 for the bad guys.

[kakakka]

Alliance loses are 40,000. So half of their 80,000 is dead. Akatsuki lost 50,000. So half of their Zetsu are dead.

I LOLed
________

[Ulquiorra]

When did the Alliance lose 40,000? I never felt from watching this war that any of these loses were that high. Everyone lost half of their forces and yet it feels like 20 people have died.

Maybe Madara is dying and that is why he is rushing. But I have no clue why he says he needs to win the war. He doesn't. His plan is not to defeat the Alliance, but to capture Naruto and Kirabi. And now he might not even need Naruto.

Oh well, at least Shikamaru got some hype by messing with Madara and getting fanboyed by Tobi. And A and Tsunade are gong to fight. Please let them die.

at all the others hiding behind trees and rocks. Kakashi and his epic offscreen rampage. He looks like he wants a nap. And Neji from the looks of it got beat up again by fodder Zetsu. Man he sucks in Shippuden.

[james0246]

It seems my earlier specualtion about Madara using the full moon to enslave the Alliance may just be correct...

[Nite-Wing]

man those numbers make no sense and can't possibly be accurate. Possibly the shortest ninja war ever

[Neji112]

So 40 000 no name genin or chunin have died. For an author who was willing to kill Asuma, The 3rd Hokage and Jiraiya, I'm surprised he's so unwilling to kill off a few named tertiary characters.

What was Madara thinking originally through? 50 000 Zetsu dead would probably have been 100 000 if there wasn't any zombies leading them. Hopefully the Zetsu fodder is actually just a ploy to release spores on everyone.

For me personally, the saddest thing about this is that Choji of all people seems to be more useful than Neji. It's only a matter of time before Hinata somehow realizes some hidden potential and surpasses him.

Well at least Madara/Tobi is getting into his villain groove now.

[Hunter]

Originally Posted by Ulquiorra

When did the Alliance lose 40,000? I never felt from watching this war that any of these loses were that high. Everyone lost half of their forces and yet it feels like 20 people have died.

As I said a few weeks ago, people were vastly underestimating the number of casualties because too few named characters were among them but if you look at the panels displaying the battlefield you could see the ground was littered with corpses from both side.
Kinkaku alone had nearly slaughtered an entire division, that's nearly 16000 ninja, now add what Madara just did to the survivors on the beach and those who were killed by the swordmen & co and 40k is easily reached.

[gameboy234]

Surprised that the chinese vers. is out. LOL at the death toll.
So kirabi and naruto lost a part of the tail beast chakra. Wonder what implication will it cause?

[Alchemist007]

So the enemy basically has lost nothing considering that they're all clones or dead to begin with. The advantages of zombies

[Ero-Senn1n]

It didn't feel like 40,000 people died, in the manga, i guess in the anime they'll make some efforts to correct this. But the problem is that none of the named characters died, i expected that at least some older ninjas die or some people who were recently introduced, like general Kitsuchi. Of course Kishimoto's plan is probably to keep them alive for later use, i mean they die later in the story, but it's just wrong to kill 40,000 ninjas out of 70,000 and save all the named characters that were fighting on the front lines, it's simply unrealistic. At least let them suffer some lethal wounds so that Sakura can magically heal them when average healers have failed, but not even that happened. Kakashi and others got wounded, but they were healed easily and continue to fight.

If Kishimoto continued by this logic for another day of war then in the end: the whole Zetsu army and the whole alliance army is dead, except that all the named characters are alive. Now that would be really ridiculous
Shikamaru: *crying* so many of my ninja academy friends died!
Choji: But Ino, Kiba, Hinata, Neji, ...., are all alive! Who died?
Shikamaru: That blonde guy, the girl with that strange weapon, what was their name?
Ino: How strange, I can't remember their names...

The other issue is Madara's plan. Let's take out Kabuto from this plan, and what we get is a badly beaten Zetsu army which has no Kinkaku and Ginkaku to be sealed. Then either Madara didn't really need Kinkaku and Ginkaku for this plan and his little attack on the battlefield was just for the fun of it, or his plan is so weak that even that small amount of chakra that Kinkaku and Ginkaku have is important for Madara. In the latter case Madara's plan is really risky (as he said it to Zetsu), which can mean that he will not be able to control the whole army, i mean those who are better at dispelling genjutsu won't fall in Madara's trap. That is also logical because Naruto and Bee despite they are very strong they simply would not be able to fight both the zombies and their own army. Now i wonder what did Madara say to Kabuto about his plan, since Kabuto doesn't understand why is Madara acting so soon. Sure it's full moon this night, so it's the best time to act, so why would he wait any longer? Another good reason for acting is that Madara knows about KillerBee and Naruto joining the war and he can't let that happen (Kabuto does not know that, so he doesn't know what's the reason) because he knows how strong they are. (by the way this can make Naruto's stupid decision to join the war a good one, because if Madara begins his plan prematurely then he might partially fail).

[Nite-Wing]

Yeah you really need to feel the casualties but I guess that can't happen unless a named character gets killed along with them.

[sayde]

I suppose Kishi could've devoted many more panels throughout the last few chapters depicting the death and slaughter of thousands of shinobi for the sake of making the figure feel more believable without having to kill off a named protagonist. With that said, I question how many people would've rather that happen as oppose to panels being spent on content that actually keeps the plot moving forward at a steady rate. Granted, I definitely can't speak for everyone, but I'm overall satisfied with how fast this war is progressing (at least in comparison to another war depicted in a certain other manga that took multiple years to finally come to a close). So if keeping the current pace means keeping the focus on named characters only, I think I can live with that.

[kirisute_gomen]

He's not gonna use Gin and Kin instead of Naruto, is he? Could Madara use Gin/Kin as a source for the Kyuubi's power instead of Naruto's Kyuubi?

Originally Posted by james0246

^Naruto already has three seperate life sources stowed away inside him (Minato, Kushina and Itachi), that there shouldn't be a reason for Sakura or Tsunade to do anything.

I think that neither of them are life forces and Minato has faded as has Kushina. The only whatever kind of life force left is Itachi's.

[Arti]

This chapter makes it sound like Madara plans to seal one Hachibi tentacle and Kin + Gin instead of the Hachibi and Kyuubi to execute his plan? That doesn't seem like it should work. Or is he just confident that he'll be able to capture Bee and Naruto on day 2?

Also, agreed that it's lame how Kishimoto makes it sound like the Alliance has suffered big losses despite no major characters dying. None of those casualties resonate with the readers, and a little blurb saying "40,000 out of 80,000 have died" doesn't quite do the job.

[DragoZERO]

Wow. I am amazed how the entire pace changed so suddenly. I guess reader approval fell and they had to kick things into a higher gear.

Originally Posted by Arti

This chapter makes it sound like Madara plans to seal one Hachibi tentacle and Kin + Gin instead of the Hachibi and Kyuubi to execute his plan? That doesn't seem like it should work. Or is he just confident that he'll be able to capture Bee and Naruto on day 2?

I think "Madara" is rushing it and will fail. Then we'll fall into an arc or two for Kabuto and finally Sasuke.

Also, agreed that it's lame how Kishimoto makes it sound like the Alliance has suffered big losses despite no major characters dying. None of those casualties resonate with the readers, and a little blurb saying "40,000 out of 80,000 have died" doesn't quite do the job.

I took that as something along the lines of 40,000 left. After all of that, both forces only lost half of their troops.

[Shining Celebi]

I think Madara doesn't need the kyuubi and the hachibi themselves, he only needs a part of their chakra, he can blend a small part of the chakra from all nine demons and still have the juubi, just in a weakened state. Of course, this is really just a cheap plot trick to keep Killer Bee alive and Naruto with kyuubi.

[Hunter]

Originally Posted by DragoZERO

I took that as something along the lines of 40,000 left. After all of that, both forces only lost half of their troops.

"Only"?
Those are catastophic looses, in a single day of battle the Alliance lost more than 2 hidden villages worth of ninja. Madara's forces on the other hand is only really made of... 3 people!
He only lost clones and summons.

Originally Posted by Ero-Senn1n

The other issue is Madara's plan. Let's take out Kabuto from this plan, and what we get is [...].

...The Alliance, unaware of the location of Madara's base, caught by surprise by the Zetsu army travelling underground while Madara went to the secret island and captured personally Bee and Naruto putting an end to the story with Madara as the new god of this world.
Kabuto is a hero when you think about it.

[KidKoolAid]

Pretty good chapter, but everything seems so rushed.

[Fran~]

There you have... Naruto is the manga with most deaths ever!... learn something Kubo

[tarachi]

I think with the use of partial Hachibi and Kyuubi chakras, the moon eye effect will only affect within limited range and/or has limited duration of effect.