Naruto: Shippuuden Volume 10
With the Guren arc finished, we return to Orochimaru who is now bedridden and severely weakened. His plan to transfer himself to Sasuke’s body after his three year wait is almost at hand. However a conspiracy disturbs his plan which involves Sasuke himself, and this betrayal leads Orochimaru to start the body transfer ritual after he stops this sudden attack. The conclusion leaves Sasuke alive and Orochimaru gone. With improved powers, Sasuke now sets off with only one goal in mind – to kill his brother, Itachi Uchiha.
These thirteen episodes of Naruto, mostly follow Sasuke’s quest for revenge and again, it’s another refreshing change from following the main Hidden Leaf characters. However his arc is somehow the weakest so far, in terms of main characters and I have a few reasons as to why.
Firstly, Sasuke is for the most part ‘dull’; I get that his unemotional, calm personality is supposed to make him cool but for me, his new persona makes him a very boring character so far. Maybe that will change in the next boxset but it’s a big gripe I have with him at the moment. if there is one thing that I can praise him for, it’s that he has become a pretty good tactician and this shows in most of the fights he’s been involved in, revealing how much he’s trained throughout the years under Orochimaru.
The other gripe is Sasuke’s new “Hebi” team. He recruits three ninja that he deems worth taking with him to accomplish his goal, all of them having a link with Orochimaru: Suigetsu Hozuki – who can turn his whole body into water and wishes to collect the Kirigakure’s Seven Swords; Karin – who is one of the best when it comes to sensing chakra from great distances and Jugo – who was one of the first sources of the curse seal, which can leave him emotionally unstable. The gripe comes from the team interactions, the bickering between Karin and Suigetsu gets very tiresome throughout these episodes, and as they’re not very interesting characters, it’s hard for me to be interested in them. Jugo seems to be the only one that I actually sympathise with, since he is the most sensible when it comes to his normal self.
While the majority of this boxset focuses on Sasuke and his new group, around the mid-point of this boxset comes a two episode arc showing that Kakashi was also in a team of three when he was a teenager. He worked with both Obito and Rin, led by Minato (who would soon become the fourth Hokage) on a mission to destroy Kannabi Bridge. A lot of things are revealed about Kakashi in this short arc and it’s easily my favourite part in this boxset, I wouldn’t want to spoil it any further than that; the only issue is that these episodes suddenly appear, feeling like they were randomly thrown in.
These episodes also do a decent job with characterization, using flashbacks to discover how they become who they are in the present; Orochimaru, Jugo and Kakashi are the best examples of this. There is one great battle sequence in the last episodes of this box set; one episode brings back that different animation that suits the action, it’s very suitable.
Finally, the last episode sets up two major plots for the next boxset. Naruto fans will be very excited for the main course and it does a very good job in setting up these important arcs.
“Ikimonogakari – Hotaru no Hikari” remains the OP for these episodes which never grew on me at all but the ED is replaced with “SEAMO- My Answer” which is most likely the closest you will see to a Naruto beach episode but the song is one of those forgettable J-POP add rap themes, that I really don’t like.
Extras only contain the Production Art.
In Summary
While I do have gripes with Sasuke and his team, this is still an enjoyable bunch of episodes for Naruto fans to watch but most importantly, the last episode sets up what might perhaps turn out to be some of the most memorable episodes of the franchise.
