Naruto - 635

A new wind (boring title for a boring chapter)

I'll go ahead and apologise right away. Recently, I've been pretty unfortunate with the Naruto chapters that I am expected to review. The past few chapters have had a distinct lack of content, and it's as if Kishimoto is trying to rush the series at some points, but at other points seems to slow it down so much that no new information is given in the latest chapter. Thus, this makes the recent arc for Naruto seem extremely inconsistent, and there is no balance within the events that are going on. Anyway, let's go ahead and review this chapter (whatever there is to review, that is).

So the chapter starts off with Orochimaru arriving at the aftermath of the Kages vs. Madara Uchiha (//sidenote: For those who have either heard of, or played Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm 3, this fight turns out quite differently within the game. Within the manga, as we all know, any actions that the kages took were purely futile and Madara could have killed the 5 of them within the click of his fingers. The game? All the kages (especially Tsunade) had a HUGE power boost and were apparently able to defeat Madara. For those who had not read Naruto, this fight was pretty awesome. However, this battle drove those who had read Naruto absolutely insane. :sidenote\\) and we discover how bad of a conditions the Kages are in. Something that I did not realise until this chapter was the Tsunade...WAS SPLIT IT HALF. Anyway, after a ton of useless filler pages in which Suigetsu and Karin argue, we finally get to the chase. Turns out the "chase" wasn't so exciting after all.

Orochimaru seems to like the idea of Sasuke blowing his windmill,
if you know what I mean...

Anyway, it seems that Orochimaru has finally decided to join the good side, which kind of annoys me. Orochimaru was actually a good villain before the time skip, and I thought he had a good motive. I didn't like him at all, but I suppose that's pretty important in a villain. It seems like every good villain is becoming good (e.g. Sasuke, Orochimaru) and we seem to be left with nobody but Obito. Obito is a terrible villain. His motive makes less sense than any villainous plan I've ever heard. I mean, Sasuke wanted to avenge his brother and Orochimaru wanted to gain power and acquire as many ninjutsu as possible. Obito? He saw a girl he liked die, so now he wants everyone to be under a genjutsu, even though he now knows why she died. Obito's master plan lacks logic, which is why I really dislike him as the new antagonist of the series.

Moving on past all the useless battle pages which show people failing, we get a little more useful information.

She's meant to be smiling?

We find out that Sakura isn't that happy that Sasuke has returned. I was really not sure what Kishimoto was trying to get at here, but I assume it means that Sakura no longer loves Sasuke. Throughout the recent chapters, Sakura's changed so much that it's unrealistic. She got a Byakugou, slug summoning, slug healing powers and now she no longer loves Sasuke? It's things like this that suggest that Kishimoto is trying to rush through this series. 

So, the last notable part of this chapter is the final page.

Double penetration.

I think that this was the only part of the chapter which I actually found exciting/interesting, We finally get the outcome of Kakashi vs. Obito. Unfortunately, Kakashi just so happens to be my favourite character and it really seems like he's going to die. I'll be honest here, I was completely uninterested by this chapter until this moment. It took me a while to realised what the page was showing, as there was absolutely nothing leading up to it and it was just so sudden. Anyway, I'm sure Kakashi won't die at this point, and if he does...well let's just say I'll have to find a new favourite character.

Overall, I found this chapter of Naruto really...meh. I'd probably give it a 4 out of 10, and the only reason it gets the 4 is because of the last page. With all seriousness, I really wish that Kishimoto would try and find a balance between fast and slow paced action. The recent chapters are so unbalanced that the arc either seems rushed or boring. Hopefully Kishimoto actually realises this and goes back to his old self.
But, until Friday, peace out.