#mean they support his actions or anything.......they just like him as an antagonist. weirdos.

[panharmonium]

next round of in-progress naruto thoughts under the cut!  i haven’t done one of these in a while - been doing a lot of individual posts instead, but seeing as we just finished a season and started a long filler arc, it feels like a good time to collect my thoughts.

[spoiler policy disclaimer first, as always: I am watching naruto for the first time.  i am trying to avoid spoilers, so please don’t interact with this (tags included, because the notifications now show them to me automatically) with any spoilery commentary, including even general things like “oh i love this show but it gets less good after X point” or “X season is better than Y season” or any general assessments of quality/likability/etc re: future seasons.  Thank you! <3 ]

okay uh where to begin.  UM.  so much is happening that this is not going to be a comprehensive commentary, just certain things that stuck out in my head.

two annoyances first, and then the rest is my usual lovefest:

- if i have to listen to one more speech about how amazing naruto is i’m gonna start fast-forwarding through them.  i’m sorry; i love him so much, but in the last couple of episodes there have been at least 10 separate speeches saying the exact same thing, and i need a little break from the naruto praise-fest.  i already know he’s wonderful!  you do not have make every single character tell me so.  spend that time on resolving the other characters’ arcs on their own terms, the way they deserve - naruto is very important to all of them, but he also isn’t the only reason they're here.

- i love how the show made such a big deal once again out of sakura refusing to let sasuke and naruto go on without her, saying “i’ve finally caught up to them; they’re not going to leave me behind this time” and then they literally just...leave her behind lmao.  the show has tried to resolve her arc in exactly this way multiple times and every time it goes right back to its old nonsense.  i don’t know why i keep believing it when the show says she’s just as integral a part of the team as sasuke and naruto.  i am charlie brown with the football, and i keep landing flat on my back.  

and now better things:

- i loved gaara’s relationship with shukaku coming back into play!  when he swooped in to pull shukaku out of obito like “come here, shukaku” because naruto had no connection with the one-tails...that was awesome.  and also him asking for shukaku’s help like “i’m not ordering you.  i’m asking you.  if you don’t agree, that’s fine” - i LOVED seeing that.

- that whole episode with the three-way deadlock...you ever see a particular shot and think “foreshadowing, foreshadowing, foreshadowing”???

- perpetually distressed over how entertained i am by orochimaru’s dynamic with taka and then needing to remind myself of how EVIL orochimaru is lmao.  like.  i’ve always loved his character; there’s never a dull moment when he’s around, but then in this arc they’re almost like...making you imagine what it would’ve been like if he had been on their side the whole time and you’re kind of...enjoying all these moments he has with the kids but then you have to be like NO!  THESE KIDS ARE HIS EXPERIMENTS!  HE’S THE ONE WHO STOLE BABY YAMATO AND RAISED HIM IN A TEST TUBE!!!  THIS MAN IS EVIL!!!!!!!  and yet...

- i was losing it laughing at sasuke’s snake calling him “lord sasuke.”  i’m sorry, you all know i love sasuke more than anything but this kid’s ego does NOT need further swelling.  my sister and i were both like “yeah ok kakashi’s gonna put a stop to that immediately” lmao - like there are some levels on which sasuke needs love and support but there are also some levels on which he needs an adult to bop him with an empty paper towel roll and tell him NO.

- i love that sai is still the smartest one in the room, telling sakura that they don’t really know sasuke’s true intentions and can’t trust him.  and i really liked the callback to his initial arc way back in season 2, where he looks at sakura and says to himself “your words may not be lies, but i can already tell that your smile is fake.”  

- i know it’s all going to go to shit eventually but in the meantime i love seeing team 7 sniping at each other.....“don’t drag us down, naruto”...... “remember, he can only be affected by sage jutsu!”/“i know that, i’m not YOU”...........just like the Good Old Days XD

- also how much did i laugh when minato was like “you and the others go and deal with madara” and naruto was like “OH RIGHT!  I FORGOT ABOUT HIM!!!”  ‘forgot’ about the antagonist.  in the middle of the war they’re fighting against him.  that’s the naruto we know and love. XD

- LOVED when shikamaru needed ino to connect him to the entire army and he asked “can you do it” and she went “that doesn’t matter; i’m GONNA do it!!!!”  i am crying for both of them forever but i love seeing them continue to be so amazing

- i talked about this on another post, but i have loved having minato around for these episodes.  i finally feel like i’m actually *fond* of him, whereas before, the best i could say was that he was an impressive shinobi and i didn’t DISlike him.  but it is so much fun to see what a massive awkward weirdo he is, with his ridiculous jutsu names and asking naruto “sooooooo......is this your girlfriend?”  the man is a DORK.  he’s a certified dork.

and yet at the same time - in a fight, he still possesses that sort of cold, “our family is shinobi” ruthlessness, which sounds like a bad thing, but isn’t how i mean it.  it’s just a “we do what we must” vibe, and i respect it, especially in this situation, when we really need someone like that on our side.  eg, when he realizes that it’s obito up on top of the ten-tails, he teleports there and cuts his throat INSTANTLY.  and it’s clear in the aftermath that it kills him to do it, but he does do it, without a second’s hesitation, because it has to be done.  

that sort of decisive action is what i would have expected from him, given our past introductions to his character, but i appreciate that this arc is also showing us his human side, and the depth of compassion he feels, and the weight of his guilt, and the fact that he actually cares about what happened to the kids who were his responsibility and whom the shinobi world swallowed whole.

- all of those images of what life could have been like if obito had just come home...........that was EVIL.  why would they make me see that.  the knowledge that he and kakashi could have gone through all of their suffering together, that neither of them would have had to ever be alone, that they could have had in each other what kakashi’s kids are going to have someday...that was too much.  i already think about that daily.  i did not need to see it animated for me onscreen. 

- i appreciate the fact that naruto’s attempt to talk obito over to the other side didn’t work.  i just think on a fundamental level that this isn’t really something naruto should be able to do.  naruto’s presence and what he represents make a difference, obviously, but i just think that reaching obito is kakashi’s job.  which is essentially what minato says when he sends naruto away, so i appreciated that. 

i’m sure there are lots of things i’m missing (so much is happening!) but just some yelling about the end:

- sooooo naruto is almost dead.  or temporarily dead.  my assumption is that gaara is taking him to kurama’s other half inside minato?  but that’s just a guess; i dunno.  (i’d be happy if that’s where they were headed, because it would at least mean that naruto and sakura and kakashi are back in the same place together, so i’d appreciate that.)

- sasuke is also almost dead.  hopefully taka can go pick him up...even though he’s been so terrible to them...he owes them so many apologies

- WHAT HAPPENED TO BEE?????  *distraught face* obviously we all know naruto and sasuke are going to be fine eventually, but bee must’ve been disconnected from eight-o too.........  ;_______;

- i’m just gonna come out and say it.  i think yamato is here.  you all can laugh at me later if i’m wrong, but i think yamato is here trapped inside swirly and i cANNOT handle that

- madara said something very brief about sasuke’s eyes that i’m curious about......are we finally going to get more information about the different sharingan patterns?

- the new ending credits start off as the usual naruto-sasuke show but then kakashi and sakura come bursting in and honestly the emotions i felt......THAT IS WHAT I WANT.  I WANT ALL FOUR OF THEM TO MATTER AND TO BE THERE TOGETHER.

#pan watches naruto #naruto