Shonen Beam

[scanlation by Binktopia]

Naruto is “light personified”? That’s taking an interesting character and boiling him down into something decidedly less interesting.

Madara being behind Yahiko’s creation of Akatsuki is such a cliché. Not only that, but Madara also apparently gave Nagato the Rinnegan. Just because a series has a supremely powerful villain does not mean that said villain should be involved with every last plot detail. It seems that while Naruto has improved immensely over the last several weeks, Madara hasn’t.

His eye is too talkative

Aside from how generally disappointing it would be for Konan to be offed here, it would also specifically be unfortunate because it would eliminate the possibility of seeing more of these beautifully-drawn paper-based attacks.

Odd timing for a flashback with these characters. The excellent recent action has provided a launching point from which the series could have continued to progress current plot; to instead feature a flashback of out-of-focus characters seems to be counterproductive.

Madara took some serious damage from Konan’s attack. That’s both gratifying (because Konan is an interesting character who shouldn’t become villain fodder) and unnerving (because it likely means she doesn’t have much left to offer). Still, for Kishimoto to allow his ultimate villain to suffer such damage is a huge positive, as it helps to build Madara’s credibility.

A sign of a confident author

Yet another excellent large-scale attack, as Konan swallows up Madara within an ocean of paper. Great artwork by Kishimoto.

Final Flash: Not a bad chapter, but an unusual choice of direction after the past couple arcs.