Naruto IX: [Epilogue Intensifies]

[Ramza00]

Spoiler: Boruto 23, May 2018

Show

So there was two attacks / words that have fancy translations that may have importance later. The 2nd one, Boruto's seal what Kishin / Kashin Koji called the Kama / Karma is not really clear what they are trying to signify for they are doing it phonetically and different concepts could be invoked with different languages depending on how you spell it.

But the first one invoked is lots easier to translate and see its meaning. After Kishin used his own version of the rasengan (but also spelled differently) he used a frog to do a Samahdi Truth Flames. Samahdi Truth Flames. Samadhi is a Sanskrit word which has meaning in 5 different Religions / Philosophy Traditions in India and Eastern Asia (I am not going to talk much about this stuff due to Forum Rules).

Samadhi is a type of meditation which is often seen as one of the highest form of meditations. Complete awareness of what is happening around you, by reducing the self / ego and how the self / ego colors your visualization of the reality around you. Aka you can now have close to / complete understanding of the reality around you...and see how everything effects everything in a cause and effect way so you can see the entire web of it all. Thus there are different ways to break down the roots of the word Samadhi / This type of meditation but you get 'to collect' / 'bring together' / 'concentration' / 'unifying the mind'.

Samadhi is a different type of meditation (and different philosphies / religions have different ideas on how best to reach Samadhi) but the Samadhi type of meditation is different than other forms of mediation which the two main ones in Western Culture are the Calm / Calming the Mind (Samatha) and Insight meditation (Vipassanā). Now all of these stuff are related for these different philosophies / religions teach that once you learn how to enter one different type of mind state, they then teach you different types of mind states, and you learn there are different ways to view reality.




So why am I talking so much about the Samadhi Truth Flames? Well Samadhi is one of the advanced / final meditation techniques of many religions / philosophies. It is not beginner stuff but instead stuff you do at a journeyman / mastery level. It is not something you use lightly for it heavily implies Kishin / Kashin Koji is at some form of transcendent level. Aka calling a technique with such a name would cause me to say he may be Jounin, or he may be early Kage Level, or high Kage level but he could also be a transcendent type of character doing stuff like Truth Seeing Ball effects.

Now all of this stuff you may have guessed based off other signals, but some of these signals do not really transfer across cultures unless you are more familiar with them from a sensory impression. For example you have heard of the word before Samadhi and know what it means.

----

But yeah new information with the plot. A big bad did some heavy techniques and then decide to let the protagonists live for now. The big bad has lots of knowledge of techniques we associate with the Land of Fire / Naruto (both Rasengan and Frog Summoning).

And the guy with weird hair shows up, and a same / similar seal to Boruto. The implied kargo that Kishin / Kashin Koji was searching for but decides to abandon the search after seeing Boruto's seal.

[LaZodiac]

The official translation is what I go by and it's spelt as Kishin.

But I get what you're playing at. Kishin's some kind of super powerful dude from a place that uses chakra and such, but not in the way we're familiar with. As if from a different country all together, outside of all the hidden lands. THAT is actually kind of interesting, I hope that's what they go for.

Also I'm done taking "they can't be put out by anything!" seriously since Amaterasu was supposed to be like that and it's obviously not true.

[Ramza00]

Also I'm done taking "they can't be put out by anything!" seriously since Amaterasu was supposed to be like that and it's obviously not true.

Hehe that was the point I was trying to make a fundamental / transcendent concept was defeated by another one. Concepts battle.

But yeah the Narutoverse seems silly when we now have like 3 fundamental / transcendental levels above the Amaterasu level. Googles Amaterasu was introduces in Naruto 148 and we had about 750 Naruto manga chapters, spin offs, and boruto manga chapters. Aka the 20% part of the way through the manga where an unquenchable fire that was defeated by a fire sealing technique the same chapter. That means Amaterasu was introduced 15 years ago.

[Silverraptor]

Just watched the new Boruto and...

Spoiler: My Reaction (+ Spoilers):

Show

WHAT THE FRICK!!!

That was not how the fight was supposed to go! Boruto used the tool to produce 100+ shadow clones to circle the ring and then Shikadai gave up, but in the process his ninja tool catches the eye of Naruto, which has Hinata double check with byokugan, causing Naruto the enter the stage and disqualify Boruto, giving the win to Shikadai! The series has been pretty spot on with the Boruto Movie up to this point, and then here, HERE they decide to derail the train and go cross country? Like, what the hell?!

[khadgar567]

Just watched the new Boruto and...

Spoiler: My Reaction (+ Spoilers):

Show

WHAT THE FRICK!!!

That was not how the fight was supposed to go! Boruto used the tool to produce 100+ shadow clones to circle the ring and then Shikadai gave up, but in the process his ninja tool catches the eye of Naruto, which has Hinata double check with byokugan, causing Naruto the enter the stage and disqualify Boruto, giving the win to Shikadai! The series has been pretty spot on with the Boruto Movie up to this point, and then here, HERE they decide to derail the train and go cross country? Like, what the hell?!

yeah yeah just recap of the movie best part is getting start on the next few weeks.

[Aotrs Commander]

Everybody stand up and leave the room! Lich's Come Back!

3, 2, 1, he's going to make some noise! (Which everyone will wisely ignore.)

It is the unheralded return of:

Bleakbane Catches Up With Naruto

And if you thought LAST time was bad (when I was going DVD volumes 22 (and a half) to 26 - well, this time, it's 27-32 so seven volumes and thus 91 episodes! Hell, given my usual rate of about three sets of three per week, (plus breaks for holidays and such), it's quite likely volume 33 will be out before I'm done! Isn't that a terrible thought!

On with show!

Kabuto Yakushi

Kabuto's backstory!

Well. It... Isn't too terrible. I mean, it wasn't because They Killed His Puppy.

Also, seriously, the ninja world would be a much better place it someone retocasually eliminated Danzo.

Ye gods. He manages to be not only completely hypocritical (losing his rag a bit, that's emotion fracknugget), but wasteful, incompetant and stupid all at the same time.

I mean. WOW. So you take this spy, the best you ave you have to threaten orphans to make her do it because she's the only one and plan to have her and one of the more promising orphans kill each other later, despite her being apparently literally the only one you know won't go native and betray the Leaf. (What does that say about Stone...?) The sheer, utter unbridled STUPID of the man would take my breath away if I had any.

Lichemaster, that dude was a moron.

Hell, I think I'm gonna half to go do some dimensional travellling to find a few Realities where Danzo is dead, just so I can have the satisfaction of setting his soul on lightning several times.

At this point, I wouldn't be surpised if Danzo didn't turn out to be some kind of reincarnation of some proto-deity that screwed over Magic Tree Lady.



The Izanami Activated

Ooooookaaaaaaaaaay. Kabuto had officially hit the top of the UNHOLY [EXPLETIVE] THAT'S [COPULATED]-UP, DUDE scale.

Ah, Itachi... I think at the point the dude is liquifying dead people and injecting them into his body, he's a liiiittle bit beyond the "talk him out of it stage."

PHRASING Kabuto! For the love of Lichemaster and everything putrid, we do NOT need to hear you say "Orochimaru is inside me now."

Especially given that you keep him using as your belly-phallus.

Wrong!

On!

SO MANY!

Levels!

As Mr Stoppable was fond of saying, sick and wrong. Sick and WRONG.



HAH. I figured summat was up when Itachi's eye went blind and then it was back right away. But I'd completely forgotten what you guys had said about Kabuto, so it was all a surprise when I realised the repeating. That was nicely done.

Bit... Technical, there Itachi. Hell, even I followed about half of that. Maybe you could have gone a bit slower...?

Izanagi and Izanami

...

...

The Uchiha are IDIOTS.

How... HOW can you abuse an ability you can only use once? MAYBE twice if you happen to have it in both eyes (if that is Even A Thing)? You... You literally can't spam that.

And... Anyone daft enough to forget that it's a one-trick pony and go mad with power about eing able to avoid death, like, ONCE is not someone worth sticking around anyway.

I... Don't... EVEN.

And Itachi babbles on about changing destiny blah blah blah and Sasuke's paying about as much attention as I am.

Bonkers, the lot of 'em.

Also, Itachi, just because the reanimation jutsu is over doesn't mean the war is, you frack-nugget.

Maybe, oh, I dunno, turn things around and let the poor abused undead Shinobi help take down all the rest of the bad guys with a bit of clever Tsukuyumi-ing of Kabuto? Maybe?

No?

Okay, than.



That was a pretty bizarre couple of episodes.

To put it mildly.

[Douglas]

Izanagi and Izanami

...

...

The Uchiha are IDIOTS.

How... HOW can you abuse an ability you can only use once? MAYBE twice if you happen to have it in both eyes (if that is Even A Thing)? You... You literally can't spam that.

And... Anyone daft enough to forget that it's a one-trick pony and go mad with power about eing able to avoid death, like, ONCE is not someone worth sticking around anyway.

I... Don't... EVEN.

Yes, that entire concept was thoroughly idiotic. Two incredibly powerful forbidden techniques that require a serious permanent sacrifice? Sure, fine. People arguing over who's better at it, as if one of those techniques were an important part of their regular combat tactics? Wtf?

I call BS on the author on that one, he clearly didn't think it through.

Technically it can be spammed, as Danzo demonstrated. You just have to steal other people's Sharingan eyes to fuel it.

[Ramza00]

I really do not want to defend Izanagi and Izanami for I like the abilities, and I like the lore the abilities are based off of, but I do not like the internal "naruto verse" justifications of why the techniques are forbidden.

But remember though that both Izanagi and Izanami are reality warping techniques. Techniques so powerful that they allow you to rewrite fate, and allow things to occur in the ways you benefit. Thinking about different ways to win the battle and what does it matter who Izanagi did the finishing blow of the battle, is missing the point why this may be a bad thing. Perhaps the bad thing is not about the battle and which side the Uchiha vs the non Uchiha won. Perhaps it was who is the "victor of the battle" and thus who gets the glory, or who wins or dies of the brothers and sisters of the Uchiha who used Izanagi, and so on. Aka things after the battle may be just as important of why Izanami was created.

Remember the Uchiha clan loved the blood-lust of battle, and they can get very maniac and emotional during certain times. People who are maniac and emotional or depressed and emotional are not the best users of judgement and thus should not be warping reality just because they can for often they do not think the consequences through for they are not using the rational part of their cognition.

People do stupid stuff in order to achieve the glory especially when you are OTHERIZING another group of people and thus the amount of glory is increased for you are the great hero that slayed the other. It is a big deal in myth history such as greek myth of who was the person who put down Paris or put down Achilles or put down Hector and so on. People will do stupid things such as sacrifice one of their magic eyes in order to do the final blow against an enemy, as long as it is my final blow was the slaying blow for then I get the glory and get to socially advance in the ranks and so on.

And if you are losing Uchiha members left and right with the clan vs clan warfare, there is a fresh supply of eyeballs from the dead that you can harvest from without taking an eyeball from the living. Even if the Uchiha eyeball has not awakened the Sharingan it can awaken it after the transferance.

Yes the magical eyeball economy is stupid when the eyeballs are plentiful and not a scarce resource.

[Aotrs Commander]

I really do not want to defend Izanagi and Izanami for I like the abilities, and I like the lore the abilities are based off of, but I do not like the internal "naruto verse" justifications of why the techniques are forbidden.

But remember though that both Izanagi and Izanami are reality warping techniques. Techniques so powerful that they allow you to rewrite fate, and allow things to occur in the ways you benefit. Thinking about different ways to win the battle and what does it matter who Izanagi did the finishing blow of the battle, is missing the point why this may be a bad thing. Perhaps the bad thing is not about the battle and which side the Uchiha vs the non Uchiha won. Perhaps it was who is the "victor of the battle" and thus who gets the glory, or who wins or dies of the brothers and sisters of the Uchiha who used Izanagi, and so on. Aka things after the battle may be just as important of why Izanami was created.

Remember the Uchiha clan loved the blood-lust of battle, and they can get very maniac and emotional during certain times. People who are maniac and emotional or depressed and emotional are not the best users of judgement and thus should not be warping reality just because they can for often they do not think the consequences through for they are not using the rational part of their cognition.

People do stupid stuff in order to achieve the glory especially when you are OTHERIZING another group of people and thus the amount of glory is increased for you are the great hero that slayed the other. It is a big deal in myth history such as greek myth of who was the person who put down Paris or put down Achilles or put down Hector and so on. People will do stupid things such as sacrifice one of their magic eyes in order to do the final blow against an enemy, as long as it is my final blow was the slaying blow for then I get the glory and get to socially advance in the ranks and so on.

And if you are losing Uchiha members left and right with the clan vs clan warfare, there is a fresh supply of eyeballs from the dead that you can harvest from without taking an eyeball from the living. Even if the Uchiha eyeball has not awakened the Sharingan it can awaken it after the transferance.

Yes the magical eyeball economy is stupid when the eyeballs are plentiful and not a scarce resource.

But it wasn't lensed that way.

If Itachi had been explaining that there was a problem in that the Izanagi was essentially making the Uchiha lazy, and they were using to "buy" success with it - and that it was causing them to murder other Uchiha to take their eyes to replace it (admittedly, at three o'clock in the morning I and discounted implnatation) so they COULD spam it - that would have made more sense.

(Not a lot of sense, but at least it's not a manky yo-yo Sharingarn power (that would be REALLY stupid).)

But that wasn't what we were SHOWN, what we were shown was a bunch of Uchiha going "Muhahahaha, I'm going to rule the world, because I have izanagi (which I have already used once)" "no, I am" in a chain sequence, while Itachi blithered about changing destiny and knowing one's self or such. So most of the those corpses have already halved the number of magical eyeballs. (Narutopedia doesn't say you can't use it with only one eyeball remaining, but apparently the Uchiha would prefer death to blindness...)

(Hell, it would have as simple as the first one going "now the izanagi has brought so me so much glory, I need your eyes!")

I mean, I already KNEW the Uchiha clan was genetically bonkers to start with (poor, poor Sarada, at least maybe her Mum, knowing all this crap, might be able to ensure she doesn't follow the same path...), but this is just proving that the Uchiha must have bred like RABBITS to out-last their own inherent probability of going completely insane and murdering everyone around them for the many incentivised reasons the sharingarn gives them...



Oh and while we're on the subject, for the love of Lichemaster, anime, use a thesaurus and say something other than "visual prowess" every five minutes. Seriously, it it far worse than "believe it."

[LaZodiac]

My dude.

You don't even know the half of it. This entire sequence with Sasuke, from this point all the way to the end, is amazingly bad.

[LaZodiac]

New Boruto!

Spoiler

Show

It starts really badly, with people we don't know discussing things in that way they only discuss things when they're being watched by people who don't know the mysterious vagueness they're talking about. An interesting twist, these guys are in CHARGE of the main bad guy, so that's neat. Otherwise boring.

And then we get a bit of a flashback with Kawaki, marked 4 and the bought/adopted son of Jigen, who had a IV on his face, aka four but in a different number system, of the main bad guys. Clever on paper, stupid in practice. But he wakes up and surprise he's going to be a main character probably because the only thing that matters is having special powers. Speaking of which, a cyborg man shows up and blabs all the things our heroes need to know that makes Kawaki their ally, and Kawaki does an arm blade thing but is still weak so he can't slice the robot man in half yet. And the chapter ends with Boruto deciding to fight the bad guy probably.

Boruto is really bad in that it has lots of interesting ideas and the execution just isn't really doing it? It's also falling back to old standard Naruto tropes. Like I mean I get it, four is death and all that.

[Ramza00]

New Boruto

Spoiler: June 2018

Show

Nothing happened, if this was an anime this would be 10 mins or less. Just some set up and moving of pieces to get everyone where they need to be in the plot.

Well one thing did happened. We know one of the villains of Kara has high enough powers he is a reality warper / magic from nothing / probably yin+yang in Naruto terms. Sigh when you have this level of phantasmal power pretty much anything is possible and the stories often become silly.

[khadgar567]

boruto last chapter

Spoiler: just for safety

Show

kawaki and shin uchiha looks like we are getting nice bit of mad scientist ninja stuff. which funny makes this arc intresting to watch now kara has cloning tech and some one from jugos clan looks like boruto needs to visit old orochimaru in future as this feels like perfect plot to check on old snake bastard.

[Aotrs Commander]

Bleakbane Catches Up With Naruto

Back and on with the trainwreck show!

I Will Love You Always

Well. That wasn't what I expected, given the title...!

The Kage are... Getting their arses well and truly kicked, and you know it's not good when they are soiling themselves.

And there's the perfect susanoo. Oh, ouch.

Meanwhile, Itachi Explains It All...

And then undoes the jutsu.

Reanimation Jutsu: Release!

And there we go! All the re-animations all easily undone! Worst. Necromancer. Ever.

Ooooh, and Tobi is quite tweaked. Hahaha!

Dan is off to say one final goodbye (sure, why not).

Bye, bye Madara, it was...

...

...

Did Madara just resurrect himself?

Did... Madara just basically turn himself into a Lich?

He did.

He bloody did.

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Oh my Lichemaster!

Best ninja necromancer ever!

So Itachi, once again, fails. He died - again - as he lived, saving the day for a given value of "save" while otherwise fracking it all up as much as possible.

What a pillock!

Dan saves Tsunade, before sodding off to wherever his spirit goes. For all the fracking good that will do now Madara has turned on Cheating God Mode.

More than before, I mean.

Orochimaru's Return

Y'know, this episode might have had some impact if they hadn't given away the whole thing in the title. And the "next time" segment.

Glad to know that Suigetsu thinks Kabuto's belly-snake looks like a-

Whelp, he's back! Old Roachymoron hisself is back. (Anko might be grateful, though, if her curse seal is gone now.)

I love that even Orochimaru looks at Kabuto and his expression is "seriously, the [expletive]."

Also Sasuke's flat expression when Roachy says "I want your body!" Priceless.

And Sasuke wants Orochimaru back to he can go ask Some Unspecified They to Explain Everything so that he can understand and make his own choices (with the implication that his vengeance is strong, but upon whom it might be directed might change).

That's...

...

Actually pretty mature and sensible. Laudible, even. Recon and intel gathering and forming an opinion from the provided data.

Okay, Sasuke... You're doing all right. Just keep remembering to emote a bit and you might not be so utterly awful to watch.

Meanwhile, Tobi is reet peeved (Naruto taunting him REALLY not helping) and digs out the spare nine-tials chakra and Does A Chunking Into The Gedo Gob.

Well.

That's a bit of a bummer, really.



I think my big take-away from this trio of episodes is that Madara and Tobi are freaking AMAZING villains. Like, seriously. Madara, in particular, ought to be really intolerable (like Pain was) with his stupid overpoweredness. But - as Megamind once observed - the difference between a villain and a supervillain is all in the presentation. And Madara and Tobi are not without that understated humour and they have a charisma and gravitas that just WORKS. (Massive props to the English VA for pulling it off so fantastically well.) That mocking superiority, with just enough undercurrents that shows he's actually enjoying being a massive tosspot just SELL it for me.

I mean, Obito's plan is A Bit Silly in concept (though I always thought of one of my favourite bits of Doctor Who, the Master Race so I'm more forgiving than most), but he presents it in a fashion that makes a frost-hearted monsterous villain like myself feel all cold inside. Dude has STYLE (taste in Very Silly Melee Weapons notwithstanding).

Safe to say, I think that Madara and Tobi are - surprisingly, given how Stupid The Twist Is conceptually in the qutie some years I've been exposed to the idea through fanfic - are the best villains the series has had (even more than Roachy) due to their excellent execution in the anime canon. Honestly, I think Madara could go up in the Hall of Infame alongside the likes of Thrawn, Palpatine, MCU!Loki and the Witch-King of Angmar. He's such a joy to watch! It's actually rather inspirational. I might never reach the level of being a Thrawn, but you know? I might, in a few centuries, manage a Madara and I'd like to hope I could pull it off half as well as he has, seriously.

[Ramza00]

Safe to say, I think that Madara and Tobi are - surprisingly, given how Stupid The Twist Is conceptually in the qutie some years I've been exposed to the idea through fanfic - are the best villains the series has had (even more than Roachy) due to their excellent execution in the anime canon.

The twist is silly / stupid but it is an old twist that is as old as human consciousness. It is actually very similar to a specific Chinese Folk Religion that is 400ish odd years, yet this Folk Religion is based off an earlier tradition (about 800 years old) which you see all the time and we in the West associate it with a specific flower. This in turn was based around a female goddess of China which was worshiped 3,500 years old and whose was worshiped in many forms (blending with myths of the time) since then.

Now I am keeping this stuff cryptic for two reasons, 1) you have not finished the series Aotrs Commander (even if you know how it is going to end due to fanfiction and spoilers.) 2) I do not want to break this forums rules involving history, religion, and politics for if I go in detail with the comparison of fiction vs real world stuff it would trigger all 3 of the no / no categories.

But think about it Aotrs, a story that keeps on telling itself for 3,500 years of real world human history can you get any more "lich" like than this?

Thrawn can't inspire to this even with all his star destroyers and studying of the great arts of the people.

[Aotrs Commander]

The twist is silly / stupid but it is an old twist that is as old as human consciousness. It is actually very similar to a specific Chinese Folk Religion that is 400ish odd years, yet this Folk Religion is based off an earlier tradition (about 800 years old) which you see all the time and we in the West associate it with a specific flower. This in turn was based around a female goddess of China which was worshiped 3,500 years old and whose was worshiped in many forms (blending with myths of the time) since then.

Now I am keeping this stuff cryptic for two reasons, 1) you have not finished the series Aotrs Commander (even if you know how it is going to end due to fanfiction and spoilers.) 2) I do not want to break this forums rules involving history, religion, and politics for if I go in detail with the comparison of fiction vs real world stuff it would trigger all 3 of the no / no categories.

But think about it Aotrs, a story that keeps on telling itself for 3,500 years of real world human history can you get any more "lich" like than this?

Thrawn can't inspire to this even with all his star destroyers and studying of the great arts of the people.

I was thinking of the "Tobi is Obito" twist acually. That was A Stupid Twist.



The whole magic tree lady and repeating guff is a whole other problem.

First off, it simply annoys me when villains are not allowed to be villlains and get beaten as villains but turned into allies/heroes - all the time. (Even when Orochimaru/Kabuto that REALLY should not happen. Okay DANZO actually karked it but my LICHEMASTER that guy is probably more the villain of the series than the Magic Tree Lady stuff...) It is kinda of a running thing. You either get antagonists that are basically just straight monsters, not villains, or villains that end up getting redeemed or whatever. I mean, the poor galactic Empire is NEVER allowed to keep anything cool, everything is either killed off or doled out to the rebels (Baron Fel, Maarik *spits on floor* Stele (and that one is oh so VERY personal)). (Honestly, being Evil, I find that a little bit offensive, actually.) Sometimes would be fine, but it seems to get taken to way excess. Ye gods, even My Little Pony actually straight-up killed one of their villains (arguably two if you count the movie), Naruto shouldn't have had any problems. But instead, we get "it wasn't really their fault, because through-away thing at the end is basically the villain all along."

Secondly, bugger the philosophy or historical connotations - I'm a necromancer engineer, Art doesn't do anything for me most of the time - it's flat-out poor story-telling to just have a basically unheralded thing show up at the last minute that the audience has no investment in beyond through-away monster. (Again, it's not like anime/manga - or even JRPGs, Final Fantasy IX, looking at you - doesn't have a bit of an occasional problem with the last-minute end-boss, but because it gets done a lot doesn't mean it is ever a very good idea.)



Madara or Tobi (who would have been better not being Tobi) should have been the final boss, is what I'm saying. Hell it would have been better if Madara WAS Tobi all along for real.

[Traab]

Danzo had potential then died like a moron. His final battle alone negates everything potentially awesome villainous he did. (Secret mind controlling eye to nudge things behind the scene? yes please! Chessmaster behind the scenes manipulators are fun!) But then that fight against sasuke. UGGGGH! This man was a former kage candidate, has fought or taken part in like 2-3 wars, and has run his hidden band of root anbu for decades and he still fought like the worlds dumbest chump. It all boils down to one thing. "STOP WASTING YOUR TRUMP WHEN YOU KNOW ITS LIMITED!" He was like lame tobito in that you couldnt kill him even with a direct hit because NOPE! didnt hit him. Ugh I hated that fight. I swear it felt like an attempt to make sasuke seem like less of a loser when every kage there took turns pushing his biological waste in. Instead it just made danzo look stupid.

As for orochimaru, ehhh, he never really got a fair chance at being a bad guy. I mean, his first big plot got wrecked in every way possible. He got spanked and crippled by his teacher, his invasion force was crushed, his trump in garra got stopped long before he could reach the village. It was terrible. Meanwhile people like pein actually managed to pull off fairly epic things. Including one shotting the village orohimaru couldnt beat with an entire army backing him up.

All that said, I do agree its kinda odd in hindsight how most of the bad guys get redemption through therapy no jutsu.

[Rater202]

For what it's worth, Tobi was beaten as a villain.

He became an ally after he was defeated, and only because his attempt to gain redemption through his own death after realizing that he was the bad guy following the beat down was hijacked at the last minute.

[Douglas]

It all boils down to one thing. "STOP WASTING YOUR TRUMP WHEN YOU KNOW ITS LIMITED!"

He tried that part way through the fight. He almost died because of it (it's the attack where he grew wood from his shoulder to defend).

The biggest problem with Izanagi for Danzo is that, unless you have specifically set up an automatic trigger in advance like Madara did, you can't activate it when you're already dead. You have to activate the technique in advance, and Danzo had to take a little time and form a hand seal to do it - not quick enough to react to many of Sasuke's attacks before they hit. On the flip side, once he has activated it, he's already paid the price for any and all uses of it for as long as the technique lasts, which was about a minute for him.

So, Danzo had to activate it in advance to be able to reliably survive Sasuke's attacks. Having done so, he had no reason to use any other defense until it expired.

[Traab]

He tried that part way through the fight. He almost died because of it (it's the attack where he grew wood from his shoulder to defend).

The biggest problem with Izanagi for Danzo is that, unless you have specifically set up an automatic trigger in advance like Madara did, you can't activate it when you're already dead. You have to activate the technique in advance, and Danzo had to take a little time and form a hand seal to do it - not quick enough to react to many of Sasuke's attacks before they hit. On the flip side, once he has activated it, he's already paid the price for any and all uses of it for as long as the technique lasts, which was about a minute for him.

So, Danzo had to activate it in advance to be able to reliably survive Sasuke's attacks. Having done so, he had no reason to use any other defense until it expired.

So it was a crappy trump on top of it all. It was strong enough to save him from anything sure, but any opponent CAPABLE of killing him, would also be too fast to allow him to use it intelligently. Freaking loser. Wasted all that time and effort on a skill he would never be able to use in a way that made sense tactically. At best it might be useful the first time for a surprise attack. He gets "killed" Then when the bad guy turns his back, he assassinates him. Once that fails its no better than a battle of attrition. Hope your opponent becomes exhausted after killing you 12 times and that you can win before losing your last eye. He is now a lamer version of early naruto. SPAM SHADOW CLONES FOREVER TILL BAD GUY GETS TIRED AND SLIPS UP!!! At least naruto had the endurance to make that method "work"

[Aotrs Commander]

Dude got taken out by a SHURIKEN at one point.


That's really all that needs to be said.

[Aotrs Commander]

Bleakbane Catches Up With Naruto


The Secret of the Transportation Technique

Pahahaha! Now, this is more like it! Naruto, Kakashi and Guy verses Madaradobito!

And they all shine hard!

And not only do we get a Fast Ball Special with Kakashi (because that's a thing!), we also get one one with Naruto, Guy and Kakashi!

Awesome!

Kakashi figures it out. Yeah, this is more like it! Smart fighting!

Tobitomadara has a bit of a rant (starting to lose the villainous edge just a bit, dude, but to be fair, I think he's mainly a bit peeved he's got smacked around), and then Kurama comes balls him out and says "hah Naruto befriended me an he's gonna kick your arse!" Which is surprisingly more amsuign and palateable than I thought it'd be.

Who Are You?

Before intro screen - Kakashi COMPLETELY blindsides Obitomadara, ending with a inter-dimensional Rasengan to the face! Bwahahahahahahaha! Priceless!

Then we have a big long Obito montage (which was interesting for seeing all the adult characters as kids...) and then Kakashi Gaiden again in what is likely to very quickly get as repetative as some of the Naruto/Sasuke flashbacks. And - oh look - Tobi is actually Obito! Wow, that reveal might have ahd some impact if I didn't know it for years in advance and the whole mass of flashbacks seems like a bit of a poor way to be a shock reveal...

So, Obito is revealed. Guy gets Kakashi to pull it together and Obito's attack totally fails 'cos Narut blasts it away and...

Madara Uchiha shows up.

Oh.

Oh.

Ohhhhhhhhh.

Well.

[Expletive.]

Obito and Madara

Yep, they are SCREWED. If you thought Madra was bad before, now he has back-up his giant... Crap, that's a FAN isn't it, no wonder I thought it looked a bit silly for a sword, it's literally Madara's giant fan special weapons oh crapbaskets.

Gotta love the way he's like "I am surrounded by incompetants." Dude has villain style oozing out of every pore.

(Not necessarily EFFECTIVe, Evil Overlord Handbook, villain style, mind...)

And... Was... Tsunade cut in half? Like ACTUALLY in half! How the frack is she not dead?! And they're (that is she and Katsuyu) talking about putting her back together (AFTER she's healed the other Kage?)

Damn... That's...

Wow.

Hard core, Lady T, hard core.

And then more Obito backstory with loads more repetation of the Kakashi Gaiden arc.

Still, this is at least relatively untrod ground for me in the sense that seeing how he fell will be new.

Hey, new end credits, with a complete lack of Naruto and lots of Obito and... Oh Lichemaster, how long is his backstory going to take that they made an outro sequence for it...?

[Aotrs Commander]

Bleakbane Catches Up With Naruto

I'm in Hell
World of Dreams
Creeping Shadow

Well, no point talking about these seperately, since this is all just one big flashback...

That's goes from solely Obito's PoV (makes sense from context of the last point we saw him) to suddenly focusing on FRACKING PAIN AGAIN.

*sigh*

At least this wasn't QUITE as utterly intolerable as Nagato's blithering... But it wasn't especially good watching.

And, given this started out (quite sensibly) lensed as Obito;s flashback, how the merry freaking frack can he flash back to all the bits he wasn't there for?!

Again the thing I took away from this most of all was [EXPLETIVE]ING DANZO.

He must have got his bloody money's worth out of that secret sharigarn eye manipulation, is all I'm saying.

Ye gods. My LICHEMASTER.

Not often you see what is BASICALLY the undeniable (even if you blindly agree with the show's presentations, which I don't) principle bad guy cark it half way through and STILL be responsible for basically EVERY FRACKING THING that went wrong.

I say again, are we SURE Danzo wasn't the reincarnation of some older god with a grudge against magic tree lady and like eerything, because WOW that guy seriously did more damage to the world the fracking MADARA, I swear. and HE ain't even some half-arsed incarnation gubbins related to anything, he did it all off his own bat!

I don't know whether to be pleased that there ain't no redemption for him and furious that he got off so bloody lightly.

WOW.

I think he might actually make The List, along with Pain, Gladiator and the Shi'Ar because fracking WOW does that guy frack me off.

Looks like another episode or few to get through yet... Can't we please have some plot and more cool fights, or at least a filler arc?

*checks*

Oh, wait one more episode and then we get... A whole arc for Kakashi? Oh, yes please!

[Ramza00]

Not often you see what is BASICALLY the undeniable (even if you blindly agree with the show's presentations, which I don't) principle bad guy cark it half way through and STILL be responsible for basically EVERY FRACKING THING that went wrong.

I say again, are we SURE Danzo wasn't the reincarnation of some older god with a grudge against magic tree lady and like eerything, because WOW that guy seriously did more damage to the world the fracking MADARA, I swear. and HE ain't even some half-arsed incarnation gubbins related to anything, he did it all off his own bat!

I don't know whether to be pleased that there ain't no redemption for him and furious that he got off so bloody lightly.

WOW.

I think he might actually make The List, along with Pain, Gladiator and the Shi'Ar because fracking WOW does that guy frack me off.

I forgot specifically what did Danzo do that you are referring to?

[Aotrs Commander]

I forgot specifically what did Danzo do that you are referring to?

Attacked bits of the Rain disguised as Stone ninja apparently to keep the Leaf and Stone at war and nearly killed Yagito and Konan, and later on convinced Hanzo (who actually seemed like a reasonable chap who didn't have a problem with the then-Akatsuki doing their thing) that he should go out and kill them. Given how pathetically easily Hanzo seemed to go along with it, I suspect Sharingarn shenanigans, else Danzo rolled a critical success of his bluff check.

So that like two things in ONE EPISODE, ye gods.

On top of Root, organising the Uchiha Massecre (really so he could get his Sharinarm), fracking with the First's blood line (ditto and dear Lichemaster, he could have gotten the Rinnegarn...), being responsible for Kabuto, working very closely with Orochimaru... the list goes on and on.

It never freaking ends.

[Rater202]

While Kaguya is the ultimate big bad of the series via Zetsu's manipulation of the Uchiha and Madara especially, Zetsu got really freaking lucky becuase Danzo's schemes played right into his lack of hands with no apprent prompting form Zetsu or any modivation beyond his own paranoia, milliteristic personality, and control freak nature.

Something I thought Bleakbane would have appreciated when the Manga as still updating is that, rather than some eldritch abomination, everything bad that happened in the series is ultimatly the result of a couple of characters with very human flaws being dominated by the same.

[Traab]

Yeah, Danzo was a big proponent of survival and making his nation strong by keeping everyone else fighting and weakening themselves with endless manufactured conflict. After all, if I can make ame fight stone, then that reduces the number of troops stone can send at leaf while making sure ame is no longer in a position to take advantage of the losses leaf takes during the war.

[Aotrs Commander]

While Kaguya is the ultimate big bad of the series via Zetsu's manipulation of the Uchiha and Madara especially, Zetsu got really freaking lucky becuase Danzo's schemes played right into his lack of hands with no apprent prompting form Zetsu or any modivation beyond his own paranoia, milliteristic personality, and control freak nature.

Something I thought Bleakbane would have appreciated when the Manga as still updating is that, rather than some eldritch abomination, everything bad that happened in the series is ultimatly the result of a couple of characters with very human flaws being dominated by the same.

Might have, if Danzo wasn't so inherently unlikable and both utterly inept when we see him in "action" yet somehow able to set-up everything utterly flawlessly in the past.

Yeah, Danzo was a big proponent of survival and making his nation strong by keeping everyone else fighting and weakening themselves with endless manufactured conflict. After all, if I can make ame fight stone, then that reduces the number of troops stone can send at leaf while making sure ame is no longer in a position to take advantage of the losses leaf takes during the war.

I could have sworn I heard a line of his dialogue about how there must be no peace between Stone and Leaf (I think it was said by someone else that the hostilities were coming to and end), but with Danzo, who knows what was actually going on in that deluded little world of his...

[Ramza00]

On top of Root, organising the Uchiha Massecre (really so he could get his Sharinarm), fracking with the First's blood line (ditto and dear Lichemaster, he could have gotten the Rinnegarn...), being responsible for Kabuto, working very closely with Orochimaru... the list goes on and on.

I was not referring to any of this, for I remember this I just couldn't remember what he did recently (where you are in the story) for Danzo does so much and I couldn't remember how he was the linchpin / the cornerstone in an arch that caused the chain of events.

Attacked bits of the Rain disguised as Stone ninja apparently to keep the Leaf and Stone at war and nearly killed Yagito and Konan, and later on convinced Hanzo (who actually seemed like a reasonable chap who didn't have a problem with the then-Akatsuki doing their thing) that he should go out and kill them. Given how pathetically easily Hanzo seemed to go along with it, I suspect Sharingarn shenanigans, else Danzo rolled a critical success of his bluff check.

So that like two things in ONE EPISODE, ye gods.

Okay I understand.

It never freaking ends.

Yeah, Danzo was a big proponent of survival and making his nation strong by keeping everyone else fighting and weakening themselves with endless manufactured conflict. After all, if I can make ame fight stone, then that reduces the number of troops stone can send at leaf while making sure ame is no longer in a position to take advantage of the losses leaf takes during the war.

Yes it never freaking ends. I will not talk about the specific individuals (due to forum rules) but there are numerous examples of people like Danzo in the real world. Very cynical individuals who create conflict with other nations and doing proxy wars in order to create chaos and hopefully this will allow the homeland to remain secure by weakening your potential enemies, or create economic opportunities in the battlefields.

The problem with this realist / realpolitik mindset is that it works until it doesn't, and this is quite obvious from Game Theory experiments / thought processes. Your behavior changes when the world is set up in a specific way, your behavior changes when you realizes certain people are untrustworthy, or perhaps person X is trustworthy but person Y (who may be a hidden ally of person X) will sabotage thins.

It creates very bitter, very angry, very cynical people who can't trust people for their learned experience shows that things will be sabotage due to people like Danzo.

It works until it doesn't, and when it doesn't work it is possible we have even worse outcomes for no one has faith in systems, everyone acts like their back is against the wall and only the complete destruction of your enemies instead of coexisting is possible.

There is a reason why specific people in the real world hate people like Danzo and the hatred is so intense for these real world people, even if they belong to the same "nation"-state as Danzo.

[Traab]

Agreed, when it fails, it will fail BAD. The problem is, this type of person thinks they are far too amazing at manipulation and secrets to ever be caught.